Leonard Colquhoun
In the SMH, it’s take ‘em off the roads until they’re 18, according to the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, which is pushing for tougher restrictions on young drivers in a submission to the powerful Staysafe committee’s inquiry into Young Driver Safety and Education Programs. Also questioned is the effectiveness of short-term classroom-based training for novice drivers.
Research into the development of the teenage brain has made some startling discoveries recently, the gist of which is that, if you as a certificated adult reckoned that anyone under 20 lived lives as if in a parallel cosmos, you could be onto something.
But who’s going to break the news to them?
HEY, DUDES, AMYGDALAE я US
This weekend, 15-16 March 2008, two “quality broadsheets”, both in their own estimations and by repute with many media consumers, discussed teenagers and motor vehicles.
Each, in its own way, came up with similar conclusions – separate them from their vehicles.
Hardly anyone would be unaware, and many of us have been personally touched, and some of us devastated, by dysfunctional teenage performance on our roads. Here, a car runs off the road into a tree – three young lives lost, a community plunged into a depth of mourning that only the deaths of loved ones can evoke. There, a head-on in driving conditions of stormy weather which would test the most experienced and competent motorists – seven fit, healthy athletes added to the ranks of the disabled for life.
Always, the plaintive cry of “Let’s ensure that this can never happen again”. New laws, more stringent regulations are proposed, as MPs, police and medics vent their anger or express their regret, almost ritually, on the 6 o’clock news. Curfews or limits on the number of passengers are suggested; current regulations about P-plates and aged-based speed limits are reviewed.
There’s a feel-good optimism that this time there won’t be a next time.
Until there is.
Research into the development of the teenage brain has made some startling discoveries recently, the gist of which is that, if you as a certificated adult reckoned that anyone under 20 lived lives as if in a parallel cosmos, you could be onto something. “While these studies have shown remarkable changes that occur in the brain during the teen years, they also demonstrate what every parent can confirm: the teenage brain is a very complicated and dynamic arena, one that is not easily understood”, according to the (US) National Institute of Mental Health in studies which seem to show that children’s brains develop control systems on risk-taking and judgment-making quite nicely until about 12, then take a detour, a finding that many parents would greet with a “You don’t say”.
Link – http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/teenage-brain-a-work-in-progress.shtml
“If the media is to be believed, the stereotypical teen is a selfish, volatile, rude, rebellious hormone-head, capable of little more than taking outrageous risks, ingesting too many harmful substances (legal and otherwise), committing crimes, crashing parties, trashing houses, and generally being a layabout . . . Recent brain research, however, relieves hormones of much of the blame for this period of ‘storm and stress’, as psychologist G. Stanley Hall, father of adolescent research, called it.”
So wrote Nora Underwood in The Walrus, Canada’s Magazine of the Year, in the Sunday 16 March 2008 issue, as if having Melbourne’s Corey Whatshisname specifically in mind; her five-page article repays a careful perusal –
http://www.walrusmagazine.com/articles/2006.11-science-the-teenage-brain/
Interesting. More research needed?
So, The Sydney Morning Herald and The New York Times this weekend have each added to the discussion.
In the SMH, it’s take ‘em off the roads until they’re 18, according to the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, which is pushing for tougher restrictions on young drivers in a submission to the powerful Staysafe committee’s inquiry into Young Driver Safety and Education Programs. Also questioned is the effectiveness of short-term classroom-based training for novice drivers. Just about every teacher or parent, or instructor or mentor has seen the eye-glazed “Yeah, yeah, . . .” from those whom they are trying to influence for their own good. And Grim Reaper-type shock ads have little long-term effect, perhaps about the same effect as political advertising has on adults.
Link – http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/we-need-to-raise-driving-age-to-18/2008/03/15/1205472157863.html
Over in the Big Apple, the Times has observed a new American phenomenon, one which we’re not completely unfamiliar with, particularly those of us who’ve got one of those “Mum’s Taxi” stickers on the back window of a people-mover:
“YOU know her — that nice teenager across the street? Chloe. There she is, sitting in one of the two captain’s seats in the midsection of her mom’s Toyota Sienna, bopping along to the music on her iPod. Now and then she pulls out one of the ear buds so that she can tell her mom some forgotten bit of news or gossip; Chloe’s mom is up to speed on the dramas that are always unfolding in her daughter’s circle of friends, just as she can tell you the date of her next French test, the topic of her coming history paper and the location and scope of her next community service project. They have a great night planned out: they’re going to pick up Chloe’s best friend and then drive back home for a night of DVDs and popcorn in the family room. Her mom will putter around close by, and her dad will probably sit down and watch one of the movies with the girls.
“When I was in high school in the 1970s, we had a name for teenagers like Chloe: losers. If an otherwise normal girl thought that the best way to spend a Saturday night was home with her parents — not just co-existing with them, but actually hanging out with them — we would have been looking for a bucket of pig’s blood.
“That a profound change has taken place in the relationship between American teenagers and their parents is made clear by statistics from the Federal Highway Administration showing a steady decline in the number of licensed teenage drivers. In the last decade, the proportion of 16-year-olds nationwide who hold driver’s licenses has dropped from nearly half to less than one-third. . . Teenagers report that they don’t need to drive: their parents are willing to take them where they want to go, and they are content to ride shotgun with Mom, texting and yakking all the way to the mall.”
One of the icons of the traditional American way of life, the teenage driver, is becoming the teenage driven.
Link – http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/opinion/16flanagan.html?th&emc=th
Keep in mind that driving conditions are much more dangerous for teenagers now – think easy access to alcopops and mind-bending drugs, massively increased traffic volumes (e.g., Melbourne’s West Gate Bridge, built in the 1970s for 40,000 vehicles a day, now carries 120,000), and cars with N times more horsepower than even the Yank Tank convertibles of the 50s and 60s (where ‘N’ is a seriously Big Number), more trucks on the roads (which makes the short-sighted running-down of Australia’s rail networks by both major parties look even more stupid).
But who’s going to break the news to them? A job for everyone’s favourite Kevin, perhaps ?
Leonard Colquhoun 7248
For www.oldtt.pixelkey.biz
March 2008
