Keeping Teens Safe Behind The Wheel

Mr. Moeller,

Why did your sixteen year old son need his own car? I never had a car in high school, nor did many others. We survived. And as "kids" we were not treated as adults because the adults understood that at 16 you know very little about being grown up. It is nice that your son has a clean driving record. But I still question the current wisdom of treating young people with little to no life experience as if they are fully developed intellectually and emotionally.

You talk about insurance fees being a lesson in finances. Well, what about the fact that a sixteen year old adolescent comes to learn that a ten or twenty thousand dollar expense is no problem for him or her, someone else is going to take care of that. Is that a good way to teach fiscal responsibility?

"Kids" grow up to fast, too wild and too disrespectful because parents treat them as if they are adults. At 16 I was far from being capable of making the kinds of decisions ownership of a car and the resulting freedom require a person to make.

Morgan Malachite of NJ 12:12PM August 10, 2009