Like most people, I read the recent news of another automobile accident involving a teen-age driver, with much sadness. Another young life has been taken, as well as, an innocent adult who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. In this accident, the driver survived the accident, but needless to say, her life and the lives of her family will be forever changed in a negative fashion. After you add on the family members of the two victims, you have a line of victims that could join hands and more than encircle the entire accident scene. As I continued to read about this accident, my sadness quickly turned to anger!

How many more deaths do we have to endure at the hands of a teen-age driver? For those of you who have ever read any article that I have written, you will know that I am a proponent of making kids live up to their responsibility. Too often, children rely on their parents to manipulate the system so that they will not be held responsible for their wrongful and sometimes criminal actions. This ever present escape clause prevents them from suffering the consequences of irresponsible behavior. However, the tragedies of those deaths that have occurred as a result of teenage drivers are truly not the fault of the teenagers. We can point the finger at two specific groups of people. The first group, once again, has to be the parents. We put 16 year old kids into machines that are unarguably deadly weapons disguised as a car. . . and to make it worse, we put them in the fastest and most expensive ones that we can afford. After all, "our" kids must have the best! What kid is going to say no when the keys to a BMW or a hot little sports car is presented to them? As parents, who else can we blame when these horrific accidents occur? Parents are so concerned that they give their kids everything that they loose sight of just how much damage can be incurred by this show of "love." As long as we keep strapping 16 year old kids into these vehicles, we will continue strapping them into coffins in very short order and that does not even include all the innocent lives that they take with them. A parent once said that if they did not do these things for their kids, that the kids would hate them. A wiser parent said, if there is not a time in a child's life where they hate the parents, then the parents have not done an adequate job.

The second group who has to take some responsibility is those people who write our driving laws. Year after year someone introduces a law to have the legal driving age raised and year after year we see it go down in defeat. Some of the legislators complain that it is an unfair burden for kids not to be able to drive. Unfair; at 16 years of age, who cares if it is fair? How many of those same legislators, who are adults, feel safe at the wheel on the streets of Atlanta? But, we still give the green light for these inexperienced drivers to hit the streets. Well not only are they hitting the streets but they are hitting everything else including other cars and the deaths continue to mount up. It is past time for our legislative bodies to say enough is enough. The simple truth is that it is no longer safe to put young drivers on the streets of Atlanta. Those people who have lost loved ones at the hands of teen age drivers are not worried that it's not fair. With fear of sounding like a commercial, driving is not a right, it is a privilege. The statement is true. What is the big deal about making this privilege occur at 17 or 18?

Something has to happen and it needs to happen fast. Invoke mandatory driving hours, require driver education classes to all beginning drivers, require beginning drivers to operate vehicles only on secondary streets or designated driving zones, increase monetary penalties for moving violations involving kids, or here is an idea; just raise the age of beginning drivers to 17 or 18 years old. Or, oh the horror, put them on a school bus. But, for God's sake and for the sake of so many innocent victims, just please do something! What a shame it is each time one of our precious children's lives comes to an abrupt halt amid a twisted pile of metal. It is time to stop worrying about political niceties, or what seems unfair, or whether or not our children will hate us. Lets just give our kids a chance to one day have their own kids....... who will also hate them if everything goes right!