How Would This Go Down? (teenagers and driving) *may distress*

[Bathsheba]

We've moved to a country town and something I have noticed is the higher percentage of P-plater drivers per capita of the local population compared to the city. It's not uncommon for kids as young as 16 to drive the country roads alone despite being legally required to have a fully licensed driver with them at all times. A 16 yo girl had an accident recently where she failed to take a corner... she went off the road and hit a tree... lucky to survive. Another teen driver recently hit a pedestrian about a block away from where we live... the pedestrian survived because it was a 40 school zone and the driver had probably slowed down a bit but generally the young ones tend to fang around the streets with music pumping as if they own the roads

Anyhow as i was watching a car full of monkeys... erm... teen boys.... scream off into the distance an image flashed into my head (a bit like a TV TAC announcement):

Picture the above scenario... a car full of teen boys driving recklessly... music pumping... rubber burning... eyes on everything except the road. Then smash! An accident... bodies flung, driver slumped over the steering wheel blood running down his face... dead.

Then the TV screen splits so that an image of the drivers parents is shown. They look a bit wistful as they stand together and they say "Oh well, at least he died doing what he loved".

How would this go down as a message to the teenageers that choose to drive recklessly? Obviously the other TAC messages aren't getting through. Maybe it's time we stopped trying to scare the desensitized teens of today? The heart wrenching tears of distraught relatives don't seem to be saying anything to them. So maybe we need to remind them that at the end of the day the boundary pushing on the roads is going to ultimately hurt THEM and that no one is going to save them from a tragic end but themselves?

[Miss.September]

I think the shock-and-awe tactic needs to be used. It seems to be okay to see gruesome footage for quit ads, but not for TAC. I think there is a campaign of some sort where you can suggest to TAC what their next ad should be to help reduce the road toll.

[Trillian]

I have no idea what the solution to that would be. I think that more needs to be done to make it seem 'real' for the teens - by that I mean the accident survivors who travel around the schools and tell them how hard life has been since they became a paraplegic/amputee etc. You're right, they are so desensitized to what they see on TV, that it doesn't seem real to them so that's why I think taking a personal, real life approach would work. I know there have been times where they have shown kids what a real wrecked vehicle looks like and even SES demo's of cutting people (dummys) out of cars. What worked for me years before I had my license was in yr10 and we went to Sydney for an excursion and part of it was going to the Surry Hills police station and we were shown actual crime scene photos of the Grafton Bus crash, Granville Train crash and other assorted vehicular crime scenes and seeing those real people with limbs missing, skulls broken really rammed it home for me.

It's something I'm thinking more about lately as my 16yo brother recently got his L's so we've been ramming home the need to drive responsibly etc to him.

[Bathsheba]

I totally agree with the exposure to real accidents like you described Trillian. My mother worked at the base hospital here when i was younger and used to come home quite regularly upset by the weekends carnage on the roads... maybe that affected my attitude to driving... not blaming her BTW.

My 16yo DD witnessed a fatal accident on the day she got her L's. Driving home from the license office in Melbourne they were caught up in traffic and had no option but to drive slowly past a truck with a teenaged boy lying under it. DD said she didn't really want to look but "had" to. I think that has affected her. Some might say 'what a shame she had to see that'... i say "well that's the reality of driving" and i wish more teens (especially boys) got to experience that degree of reality.

[Astrid]

Even real life exposure to the carnage of an accident still does not stop all of them. I know of one incident where some kids were caught speeding about the same time as a horrific accident involving the same age group. The country cops took them to the accident to show them what speed does, sadly an hour later the same cops caught them speeding again

[Trillian]

Even real life exposure to the carnage of an accident still does not stop all of them. I know of one incident where some kids were caught speeding about the same time as a horrific accident involving the same age group. The country cops took them to the accident to show them what speed does, sadly an hour later the same cops caught them speeding again

There will always be some groups that no matter what you do, you will never be able to get them to change the way they think or act and it is those groups that will have to learn the hard way unfortunately.

[Pandora]

Its just really, really scary.
A group of 3 boys were killed in a single car accident near my Aunt's house recently, they were speeding and wrapped teh car around a telephone pole.
To "honour" the memory of their friends, there mates went to the scned of the accident...to do doughnuts and burnouts
I dont know how to get inside their heads. Im dreading having 2 teenage boys in the house.

[Bathsheba]

I seriously believe that some personality types should be excluded from driving. Recklessness is symptomatic of depression and other mental health conditions. I seriously think that driving is a priviledge and not a right and that if somebody has a mental impairment to safe driving then their license should be revoked. Police should have the right to determine who in society might be suffering from the types of mental illness that is dangerous to other drivers (speeding off after witnessing the results of a fatal accident for example)... they then should demand a psychiatric report and if that confirms a negative result then exclusions should apply for a set period until re-testing. Support evidence from doctors/teachers should also form part of the report so lying under interview can't be attempted. I'm not saying all people suffering from depression should be excluded... only repeat offenders that come under the attention of police. Yet another reason why mental health issues NEED to be taken more seriously by the government in terms of funding!

[Cassius2]

I have no idea what the solution to that would be. I think that more needs to be done to make it seem 'real' for the teens - by that I mean the accident survivors who travel around the schools and tell them how hard life has been since they became a paraplegic/amputee etc. You're right, they are so desensitized to what they see on TV, that it doesn't seem real to them so that's why I think taking a personal, real life approach would work. I know there have been times where they have shown kids what a real wrecked vehicle looks like and even SES demo's of cutting people (dummys) out of cars. What worked for me years before I had my license was in yr10 and we went to Sydney for an excursion and part of it was going to the Surry Hills police station and we were shown actual crime scene photos of the Grafton Bus crash, Granville Train crash and other assorted vehicular crime scenes and seeing those real people with limbs missing, skulls broken really rammed it home for me.

It's something I'm thinking more about lately as my 16yo brother recently got his L's so we've been ramming home the need to drive responsibly etc to him.

this demo idea is one that Mum wishes would happen more often. she works for police and reckons that they should be shown the accident photos...

funnily enough i reckon the the approach of possibly going to jail for killing someone etc in a car accident would be more frightening than death itself ITMS. i saw on Oprah (yeah i love her lol) an episode where a boy killed a pedestrian and it was powerful stuff because he had to face the consequences. i know that it shut up the hoons that she had on the stage!

[UsPlus2]

I honestly just dont think some teenagers get road safety. My BIL just got his P's and he failed 5 times before passing. My BIL and DP were ALWAYS blaming the tester for him failing. I had to keep reminding the both of them that the tester and can only fail on BIL's actions, he wasnt be nasty or harsh, the guy has a ticker box check list, and BIL kept failing basic things. On one occassion he actually stopped on train tracks waiting for traffic to clear. BIL was laughing when he was telling us how mad the tester got at him, like the tester should have taken a chill pill. seriously and now this kid is on the road.

In some cases I blame the parents. My inlaws were 100% behind BIL when he blamed the tester, rather then explaining he needs to pull his socks up, they went along with the conspiracy theory, it just enable that ego boast BIL was already on. I had my learners the day I was eligible but my parents always instilled it wasnt a right and they would take it away at any time if I acted irresponsibily.

I say harsher penalities, espec more jail time for those drivers that hurt or kill people with their car, start looking at cars in the same light as guns. A car, like a gun, by itself cant hurt anyone, its the driver that does. I feel like people, teenagers/drink drivers/hoons etc have had enough warnings, now its time to start penalising properly.

[mummydreamer]

I think the shock-and-awe tactic needs to be used. It seems to be okay to see gruesome footage for quit ads, but not for TAC.

yeh that's so true, you see so many of those gross ads for cigarettes, but hardly any on speeding and drink driving.....i think it's scary how teenagers these days just have no idea of consequence, they're so la-di-da when it comes to driving. we live rural as well, and i have to say im scared to share the roads with some of the idiots around here. nothing seems to be getting through, it's ridiculous.

[Teeki]

I honestly don't know how to get it through - nothing seems to work. No matter what they see or hear, they still believe it won't happen to them. Here in SA there have been two cases of teenagers dying in car accidents due to their reckless driving. At their funerals, and at memorials at their crash sites, their friends have been "paying tribute" to them by doing burn outs and driving recklessly.

If the death of a friend won't stop them, I don't know what will

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[Beautiful Disaster]

When I was in yr12 the school put on a docudrama. This was a mock up of a fatal accident. It started with us all sitting in the auditorium with a talk about something and then a loud SMASH. We were taken out side and there was the accident. It was so real. They had used our classmates/friends in the accident. They were covered in blood and all sorts. One was even put in a body bag zipped up and put in a herse.
This put me off getting my license till I was 20.
I think more schools should do something like this. I'm sure it wouldnt have the same effect on everyone but I was a real eye opener.

I've since then had to say goodbye to a few of these people.

[Teeki]

Bath, I reckon you've made a good point with the Nana. So many of these drivers are thinking just about themselves - oh it won't happen to me, and if I ding my car it's my fault and I'll fix it. They need to think about the people they're sharing the road with, so many innocent people who's lives they're endangering by choosing to drive stupidly.

My DH was a hoon in high school. Until one day a man came in to talk about how he lost his 10 year old daughter - she was a passenger in a car doing all the right things, but they were slammed into by someone speeding through a give way sign (this was all in the country, we grew up in small towns).

That's what hit it home for DH, that by driving recklessly he's endangering other people. It's worse for him now, thinking that he knows young people who drive like this, and the thought that our dd and I could be in their path one day - it doesn't bare thinking about.

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