Minor Thoughts from me to you

Above: A child exhibiting suspicious behavior.

Proponents of raising the U.S.'s minimum age for legal drivers are having a good week, as recent news stories seemingly lend credence to their dire warnings that today's U.S. drivers are simply too young for the responsibility of being behind the wheel.

Reports of a 4-year old in Wisconsin crashing his parents' SUV into their garage might be easily enough dismissed; after all, SUVs are very famously large vehicles, and even your Minorthoughts.com correspondent's father once dented his Baeur-designed beauty trying to park in his basement's limited space. But now we are told that an 11-year old boy has led Louisiana's state police on a high-speed chase, after an officer of the law tried to ticket him for going 20MPH over the highway speed limit (it was 60; he was doing 80).

One can't blame this egregious violation of road rules on simple lack of driving experience. According to police, the child had been driving without incident for a good six months prior to the time of the incident.

March 2, 2005's edition of USA Today pegs the issue as simply one of brain development:

"For years, researchers suspected that inexperience — the bane of any new driver — was mostly to blame for deadly crashes involving teens. When trouble arose, the theory went, the young driver simply made the wrong move. But in recent years, safety researchers have noticed a pattern emerge — one that seems to stem more from immaturity than from inexperience."

Will the age-uppers finally make some headway? They've got opposition; even some parents, traditionally the party-pooping nemeses of teens everywhere, oppose new laws regarding driving ages. After all, children who can drive themselves around are more useful. The previously-mentioned 11-year old boy was dropping off his disabled father at the hospital and heading over to pick up his mother from work when police noticed him.