Tim Blair lets loose a fine rant about the recent hand-wringing and fretting over driver's education specifics in Australia. The Daily Telegraph, you see, is worried about the "supercars" available to provisional drivers, and wants to hold the government - and car manufacturers - responsible for making such cars available. But Tim notes that when tragedies (such as a 15-year-old pregnant girl killed in a crash) happen, those responsible are usually those in the driver's seat:
Please. Do you think the driver was unaware that it is not a good idea to drive at 200km/h in a 50km/h zone with a pregnant teenage passenger? Speaking of whom, her 33-year-old boyfriend was also on board. Why wasn’t he demanding that his youthful friend slow the hell down? For that matter, why didn’t Mr Schyf [the dead girl's father] educate his kids about not getting pregnant at 15 to men more than twice their age?
A certain issue of personal responsibility appears to have been dodged here, at several levels. Yesterday The Telegraph ran a puzzling piece by Luke McIlveen (not available online) defending Natasha Schyf’s pregnancy: "We should be praising Natasha Schyf for committing to one of life’s biggest challenges at such a young age."
Excuse me? She was knocked up by a 33-year-old. Congratulations!...
In its zeal to pursue the NSW government, The Telegraph has missed the bigger story. We've got here a 20-year-old so irresponsible he drives a car containing a pregnant girl at four times the speed limit; a 33-year-old so irresponsible he has sex with 15-year-olds; and parents so irresponsible they allow it. And the Telegraph is worried about ... driver ed.
There are irresponsible idiots here, but the car manufacturers - and the government - aren't the problem.
Posted by kswygert at November 29, 2004 11:57 AM