Heavy restrictions for young drivers: McGuinty's Nanny State?

[cruzin4u]

Says the guy who tints his car windows to feel safer.

You are obviously not paying attention. Read my post above. A factory tint comes standard with the vehicle. Take a look around, a good amount of newer vehicles have this.

@Hydrogen

Tint acts as a deterrent whether you want to believe it or not. Yourself and your friends have been unfortunate. I have owned a $6,000 sound system in my past vehicle and never had a break in once. It's a matter of luck, time and place. Some people are fortunate, some are not. Tint does help, but trying to make you understand that is proving to be impossible. You are set on your hard headed ways.

 

[unimaginative2]

I think all these restrictions on young drivers are going to be a disaster in the long term. So many people are putting off getting their license these days, and most of them are going to wind up getting them in their late 20s or 30s when they need it for work or family. Unfortunately, people who first drive in their late 20s or 30s are much less comfortable on the road for the rest of their lives than people who learn at 16. I think we're going to have a flood of dangerous new drivers about 10 years from now.

 

[Hydrogen]

@Hydrogen

Tint acts as a deterrent whether you want to believe it or not. Yourself and your friends have been unfortunate. I have owned a $6,000 sound system in my past vehicle and never had a break in once. It's a matter of luck, time and place. Some people are fortunate, some are not. Tint does help, but trying to make you understand that is proving to be impossible. You are set on your hard headed ways.

You too are providing an anecdote.

I had a car manual in my closed glove compartment. The people who broke into my car didn't take it, but they went looking anyway.

 

[kEiThZ]

I think all these restrictions on young drivers are going to be a disaster in the long term. So many people are putting off getting their license these days, and most of them are going to wind up getting them in their late 20s or 30s when they need it for work or family. Unfortunately, people who first drive in their late 20s or 30s are much less comfortable on the road for the rest of their lives than people who learn at 16. I think we're going to have a flood of dangerous new drivers about 10 years from now.

What's more, nanny state regulations rarely fix problem, they simply promote irresponsibility and lack of common sense (the govt will stop me if it's wrong). Civic responsibility is out the window. This kind of crap from the Liberals is just as bad as the Conservative social policy platform.

 

[Hydrogen]

Unfortunately, people who first drive in their late 20s or 30s are much less comfortable on the road for the rest of their lives than people who learn at 16. I think we're going to have a flood of dangerous new drivers about 10 years from now.

Just curious as to where this is shown to be true.

 

[cacruden]

It really is a form of age discrimination, all these regs.

If they cracked down on tailgating too, that would solve most of our highway probs.

They could always do it in a way that is not "age discrimination", like the first year you drive - you start off with 6 points, when you use half - your license is suspended pending review; each year that you drive without any incident you get an additional 3 points - maxing out at 15. Any speeding ticket leads to loosing points (which would be equivalent to a suspension in year one) - you would also loose a certain number of points for the following year - So if you speed - loose 3 - suspension, next year you have 3, and if you are perfect - next year 6. If you loose 6 points and you are down to zero - you cannot drive for a year - then you start off with 3.

Of course they could also "toll" all major highways - using electronic licenses - if you pass between two tolls faster than you should, a speeding infraction is applied.

 

[ShonTron]

Tim Mulcahy strikes again!

Globe: Liquor-licence charges 'overreaching'

Excerpt:

TIMOTHY APPLEBY

From Wednesday's Globe and Mail

January 14, 2009 at 5:02 AM EST

Prosecutorial overkill: Through the eyes of several seasoned observers of Ontario's liquor-licensing laws, that's the view of the decision to charge 16 people and a high-end golf-club corporation in a cottage-country drunk-driving tragedy last summer that cost three young lives.

"As far as I know, nothing of this magnitude has ever been done before," said Vic Miller, who as founder and owner of the Bartending School of Ontario has been in the booze business for 36 of his 55 years.

"I think they're trying to create a precedent."

Lawyer Randall Barrs, a veteran of court battles involving the provincial Liquor Licence Act, said much the same.

"This sounds like a bit of overreaching," he said of the 34 charges laid under the act by Ontario Provincial Police.

Killed in the high-speed car crash last July were Torontonians Tyler Mulcahy and Cory Mintz, both 20, and Kourosh Totonchian, 19, as they and Mr. Mulcahy's girlfriend drove away from a three-hour drinking bout at the Lake Joseph Golf Club in Muskoka Lakes township.

The scope of the charges announced Monday, however, appears to have no precedent.

Three of the 16 charged with permitting drunkenness on a licensed premises and with supplying liquor to an apparently drunk person were working at the golf club's Water's Edge restaurant that afternoon; two were bar staff, the third was the restaurant manager.

Facing the same charges is ClubLink Corporation, which is based in King City and owns and operates dozens of golf courses.

But the other 13 individuals belong to ClubLink's board of directors, none of whom were apparently anywhere near Lake Joseph the day of the crash.

Except that the OPP actually went overboard, charging people who weren't even execs in 2008.

CBC: 2 executives charged in fatal Muskoka crash had already left company

Excerpt:

CBC News has learned two of the people charged by the OPP on Monday in connection with the deaths of three young men in Muskoka last summer didn't work for the company involved when the accident happened.

The three men, Cory Mintz, 20, Tyler Mulcahy, 20, and Kourosh Totonchian, 19, died after the car they were riding in burst through a guardrail and struck a tree before ending up on its side in the Joseph River, near Port Carling.

A fourth member of the party, Nastasia Elzinga, 19, survived the July 3, 2008, crash. She is also from Toronto,

The OPP said at the time its investigators had determined that alcohol and speed were "definite factors" in the crash. An autopsy confirmed that all three drowned.

It was also revealed that the group had consumed 31 alcoholic drinks over a three-hour period at the Lake Joseph Club before the accident.

The three victims had been visiting Mintz's mother's cottage and decided to have a late lunch at the Water's Edge restaurant in the club.

On Monday, the OPP said it was charging 16 people with a total of 34 offences under the Liquor Licence Act. Three employees and 13 executives with Clublink, the corporation that owns the exclusive Lake Joseph Club, are facing charges.

The three employees were working the day of the accident. One was the restaurant manager, the other two were bar staff.

But CBC News reports that records show that two of the executives charged are former Clublink vice-presidents and had already left the corporation before the incident happened.

Of course, Tyler already had several tickets and was in danger of having his licence suspended. We also learned that Tyler was also recently charged with public drunkenness just before the crash. Knowing this, it makes me wonder why Tyler still had access to the car in the first place.

 

[Observer Walt]

^ Maybe dad should have been paying more attention, but when someone of 19 or 20 gets into trouble, maybe parents don't always have a way of knowing about it.

I think it's quite appropriate for the three liquor servers at Lake Joseph to be charged. It's not as if these guys were bar-hopping to conceal how much they were consuming. I don't know how 31 drinks could be served to just four people, especially in a location where there is no public transit and it would be obvious that one of them would be driving upon leaving the bar.

 

[Hydrogen]

Unfortunately we don't know the details of what went on inside the bar. There is always a possibility that the bar tenders lost track of what was being served, and to whom. And quite possibly they did not see any overt signs of inebriation, either. I'm not saying they are potentially without responsibility, but people have to be aware that, ultimately, the responsibility for driving and driving lies with the person who does it.

Maybe the driving age, the drinking age and the right to vote should all be made age eighteen. We could spend the preceding two years drumming into heads that once everyone is eighteen, they are adults - equal with all adults.

Maybe then this mish-mash of graduated drivers situation and playground for never-ending permutations for regulation could possibly be eliminated.

 

[ShonTron]

I agree with the all-at-18 rule, but perhaps allow restricted learners' driving permits before the age of majority, but do not allow full driving privileges until that date at a minimum.

 

[ShonTron]

What I find interesting too is how the Star and Globe refuse to entertain comments on this story. A Jim Coyle column in today's paper had comments on the site, but they were all deleted.

 

[Hipster Duck]

^It's hard to attract sympathetic comments when the "victims" were most likely this variety of human being:

 

[ShonTron]

I loved that episode!

Not only that, the OPP were Clouseauesque (like the waiter) when they laid charges left, right, and centre.

 

[lordmandeep]

really I hate how our society is slowly taking away the concept of self-responsibility and putting this new responsibility onto others.

I hate it...

We can let people act like complete idiots and its someone else fault.

Of course they could also "toll" all major highways - using electronic licenses - if you pass between two tolls faster than you should, a speeding infraction is applied.

They were talking about that in Australia when I was there 5 years ago.

Woh what a firestorm that was...

 

[BUGEYEDBRIT]

I was just thinking the same thing, while clearly drinking 31 drinks in 3 hours is quite a bit, my response was that they(the drinkers) knew what they were doing and should be held responsible for their own actions. Its sad that 3 people are now dead, but had they thought more about their own actions, and the likely repercussions, they might still be here. You cannot legislate to cover everyone with a warm cuddly safety blanket, when a small minority are going to ignore the existing laws re drinking and driving in the first instance (as was the case here).

Maybe the lesson that needs to be learnt is that all of us young and old, need to stop and think about what we do and the effect on ourselves and others would be, until then, there will be more incidents like this.