Teen safety program now illegal

[Beavah 205]

Yah, hops, but even if that were true, it wouldn't be freedom, would it? That 20 year old who just returned from Iraq still wouldn't be allowed to buy a bottle of wine to take it home and share with his wife over dinner.

 

:)

 

I gotta say, I'm sorta amused and befuddled by all this. We Scouters are the ones tellin' the world that youth can be trusted to make decisions, that youth leadership and youth running their own activities is something to be valued and worked toward, eh? That you can trust your 11-year-old to the leadership of his 14-year-old Patrol Leader in the wilderness.

 

The Safe Rides program is a Scoutin' (well, Venturing) activity that fits perfectly with our mission - it demonstrates youth leadership and youth-run endeavors, it provides a genuine community service, it says "you can trust us as responsible youth to help you out and do the right thing."

 

We're constantly under fire by those who feel that youth led and youth run are bad things, that youth aren't capable, that adults have to take over and "organize" things, yadda yadda.

 

And now we're agreein' with them?

 

Beavah

 

[OldGreyEagle 5]

Not when we enable illegal activity

[MarkS 11]

Beavah said, "Nah, let's get back to the point, eh?"

 

I've been trying to but you keep straying from it. You keep trying to tie GDL laws to the restriction of liberties and that is simply ***NOT*** a valid argument. You talk about them being a "scary precedent" when the truth is that the "legal precedent" says that driving is a privilege not a right. Therefore no liberties are squashed. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say, "Baby, you can drive my car."

 

The data shows that these laws do a better job of more safely and more responsibly introducing novice teen drivers into the public by allowing them to gain experience under more ideal conditions before allowing them to drive under more risky conditions. It's like that 19 year old with a rifle in Iraq you talked about in another post. I bet combat is not the first place he fired that rifle. I bet he was trained under more ideal conditions before being asked to fire it in battle.

 

We'll just have to agree to disagree. You see this as an infringement on individual liberties. I do not. With luck, maybe that Congressman can get a exemption for the Safe Ride program and other not-for-profit programs like it.(This message has been edited by MarkS)

[Beavah 205]

Yah, MarkS, I understand da legal issues. But if legality is our test for right and wrong, then we're in serious trouble, eh? Special interests manipulate da law in their favor all the time. And it's perfectly legal for a 16 year old to have consensual sex.

 

My question is simple. Would you support restricting the driving privilege of your own demographic group (males) because they have demonstrably worse driving records as a group? Which they do. It would generate substantial safety improvements. It would save lives.

 

I expect yeh wouldn't, eh? If someone suggests that our own privileges be restricted because it would yield benefits, that's when we suddenly say "Wait! You can't just look at the benefits! You have to look at the costs!". And probably "Get your laws off my freedom!".

 

Scoutin' is a dangerous activity. More dangerous than some other youth activities. We kill and injure boys every year. Some get abused. None of that would happen if we banned Scouting.

 

OGE's argument is a different one. It's not an argument for using the law to place additional restrictions on young people. It's an argument that a Scouting group shouldn't be providing this kind of service because it might be encouragin' bad behavior in young people. That's got real merit, and is a very tough call. That's makin' an argument that's trying to balance costs (da risk of enabling bad behavior) against benefits (the chance of saving lives and demonstrating good behavior).

 

Beavah

 

[scoutingagain 20]

"Passing legislation to restrict young adults 18-21 from drinking is not the same as restricting liberties of other groups. It's "protecting young adults."

 

 

"Passin' legislation to restrict liberties of gun owners ain't the same as restricting liberties of "other groups", as long as we're not in the group that is bein' legislated against. "

 

Beav, just curious... Why didn't you include

 

Passin' legislation to prohibit two members of the same gender from gettin' hitched.

 

 

SA

 

[scoutingagain 20]

Beav,

 

I understand the civil liberties concern and am somewhat sympathetic to that agruement. You probably understand the legislative process better than I do. In out system it is not easy, to get legislation restricting the activities of any group, youth, male, female, old, ATV drivers, cell phone users, cigarette smokers, truck drivers, liquor store owners, bar/resturant owners, etc. passed. It's downright difficult.

 

1. A majority of legislators in two separate houses of governtment must be convinced of the merits of the legislation, through debate that surely includes all the pros and cons, costs/benifits your discussing.

 

2. Then a chief executive must also be convinved of the merits of the legislation or he/she can veto it.

 

3. If, even after 1 & 2 have been achieved, parties that feel the legislation is not in keeping with the constitution and unjustly deprives them of liberties they can challenge the legislation in court. If the judiciary agrees with the arguements of the agreeved group they can nullify the legislation.

 

So after all that, if society through the system set in place, feels it's better to have 16 year olds take a little more time to get a license and spend some time getting experience driving before they drive with others or late at night, so be it. I'm comfortable with that process.

 

SA

[funscout 11]

As a parent, I approve of the graduated driver's license programs. my older son will be driving in a couple of years, and I want to be sure he has minimal distractions while he is still an inexperienced driver.

 

Although the Safe Rides program did help keep drunken teens (and innocent people who could have been hit by these drunk drivers) safe, I agree with LisaBob that I would not want my boys driving a drunken teenager home. As I said, distractions must be kept to a minimum for new drivers, and a drunken teen in the back seat would be a huge distraction!

[Beavah 205]

As a parent, I approve of the graduated driver's license programs. my older son will be driving in a couple of years, and I want to be sure he has minimal distractions while he is still an inexperienced driver.

 

Yah, funscout, so as a parent yeh should be sure he has minimal distractions while he is still an inexperienced driver, eh? There was nuthin' stopping you from doing that before the law. Yeh don't need a law to enable you to act like a parent.

 

Laws aren't things that enable free citizens to do stuff. Laws are things that authorize da state to punish citizens under certain circumstances. The change in the Illinois law allows people with guns to arrest, detain, and punish young folks and their parents if they do/allow certain things. You need a law only when yeh want to punish other parents for not acting the same way you do. Like allowing their son to assist with a BSA-authorized and adult-supervised SafeRides program .

 

SA, I hear yeh. But you'd be amazed at how easy it is. All those steps yeh mentioned lined right up ending with the Kelo decision, eh? Now your local government can seize your house and give it to me, as long as I can show I'll increase its taxable value .

 

Da price of Liberty is Eternal Vigilance... especially when we're talkin' about takin' away rights and privileges from individuals based on their demographic group, not on their personal actions.

 

That way lies dragons.

 

Beavah(This message has been edited by Beavah)

[MarkS 11]

Beavah said, "My question is simple. Would you support restricting the driving privilege of your own demographic group (males) because they have demonstrably worse driving records as a group? Which they do. It would generate substantial safety improvements. It would save lives."

 

I'd like you to show that GDL laws restrict any teens's driving privileges... a teen has no license and no driving privileges, gets a license with privileges best suited to his or her skill level, gains experiences and gets even more privileges. WHERE'S THE RESTRICTION???

 

Males have a demonstrably worse driving record as a group? That may be so but show me that there's a significant difference as I showed you with teen drivers. Be sure to exclude teen males (not in my group). Hint: I know the answer... per 100 million miles driven the driver fatality rate for middle-aged men is about 1, for middle-aged women it's about 0.5, for novice teens the rate is about 7.

 

My answer to your question is simple. Gov't should try to write laws that make the most positive impact in the lives of the people in the community. I don't think restricting the privileges of middle-aged adult males with families to support accouplishes that but I think gradually inscreasing the privileges of novice teen drivers as they gain experience does.(This message has been edited by MarkS)

[scoutingagain 20]

"All those steps yeh mentioned lined right up ending with the Kelo decision, eh?"

 

Well I admit I still don't get that one.

 

SA

[fgoodwin 23]

As the OP, I just want to clarify that it wasn't my intent to start a flame war re: underage drinking OR underage driving.

 

I just thought it was sad that this law, although well-intentioned, has the unfortunate (and unforeseen) consequence of derailing a worthwhile service, which happened to be provided by a school-sponsored Venturing Crew.

 

You may return to your regularly scheduled flaming . . .

[Merlyn_LeRoy 72]

Fred, it isn't a "school-sponsored" venturing crew. I checked this a while back. Public schools can't charter venturing crews, remember?

[MarkS 11]

hops_scout said, "From the articles I've read (both here and on the Belleville News-Democrat's website) it sounds to me like the program might have technically been illegal to begin with. It talks about the driving curfew being moved up to 11PM instead of midnight. They already said that they are driving until as late at 2AM."

 

Actually under the old law 16 year-olds had the 12:01 am curfew and 17 year-olds had no curfew. Under the new law both have an 11 pm curfew. Safe Ride drivers had to be at least 17 with 1 year of driving experience so they wouldn't have been in violation of the old law. However, the old law also limited the number of passengers for 17 year-old drivers to one person under the age of 20. That said, Safe Ride's practice of providing a navigator under 20 years-old for the driver providing the ride home to a client was potentially illegal under the old law (depending on the age of the client).

 

Beavah said, "Accident rate for folks over 70 is pretty darn high, eh? When are we gonna start seein' restrictions on night driving?"

 

A better way to handle a loss of physical ability would be to simply start giving driving tests at the time of license renewal to drivers at such risk.

 

fgoodwin said, "I just thought it was sad that this law, although well-intentioned, has the unfortunate (and unforeseen) consequence of derailing a worthwhile service, which happened to be provided by a school-sponsored Venturing Crew."

 

Given that the law that takes most of Safe Ride's drivers off the road, also takes the majority of their clients off the road too, I'm kind of wondering if this is an issue?(This message has been edited by MarkS)

[Beavah 205]

Yah, fgoodwin, I didn't see any flamin', eh? MarkS and I and others were havin' a friendly and animated discussion about issues. Nobody was rippin' on anyone personally. I certainly don't feel like I was bein' flamed. I think MarkS and others are bein' passionate about their viewpoint, and tryin' to make a case for their perspective. And vice versa.

 

Besides, I agree with you. I think it was sad that the law played this way, and I'm opposed to the law for that reason. By adding restrictions to a group, you can do damage to individuals who are doing nothing wrong and indeed many things right. That hurts society, eh? Not just from the direct damage done, but the indirect. It ain't a precedent I like to see, because folks who deal with the law see it manipulated in bad ways all the time.

 

But I get MarkS's perspective, eh? I don't really have that many objections to GDLs. Just to da sloppy and special-interest nature of the legislation. Poor and scary precedents creep in this way, eh? "How can anybody be against safety??" and all that.

 

I'm just remindin' MarkS that if he can do it over one percentage figure, someone else can use exactly the same justification and a lower percentage figure to place restrictions or additional burdens on him and his family. Lives saved is lives saved. Auto accidents are a big killer, and probably da biggest maimer/medical cost source outside of chronic disease.

 

But they wouldn't go after him first, eh? It'd be males from certain races and income levels without college degrees next.

 

Beavah

 

[MarkS 11]

Beavah said, "Yah, fgoodwin, I didn't see any flamin', eh? MarkS and I and others were havin' a friendly and animated discussion about issues. Nobody was rippin' on anyone personally."

 

I'm certainly happy you didn't think there was any flaming going on. I know I was close but tried not to cross that line.

 

I lost a friend on my High School Cross Country Team in a car accident. He was a passenger in a vehicle driven by a teen who was experiencing a drizzly rain for the first time. The driver was going too fast but not terribly so, skidded, didn't know how to recover properly, and wrapped the car around a telephone pole. As far as I know no GDL would have helped. It happened at 11 am on a Saturday.

 

The good news is all of the Safe Ride drivers who lost their overnight driving privileges with the law change will get them all back in less than a year.