13:01 – Today, in conjunction with Barbara’s regular weekly house-cleaning, we’re going to get some of the stuff cleared out from upstairs and moved downstairs. The problem is, UPS keeps showing up at the front door with deliveries of components, most recently Friday, when they delivered another 50 kilos or so. I just stack the boxes in the library, which adjoins the foyer. Eventually, most or all of the floor space in the library is covered with stacked boxes, as is the case now. Fortunately, Barbara has a sense of humor about these things, but eventually, to preserve domestic tranquility, I need to get the stuff moved downstairs to the component inventory area. Come to think of it, it might not be a bad idea to ask UPS to deliver bulk stuff downstairs to start with. Then I could just leave the boxes stacked down there until I had time to get the stuff moved and organized.
Sunday, 2 September 2012
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The leaves are turning faster here in northern Vermont and OFD is throwing out stuff, moving stuff, and looking forward very much to the end of the month when all this should done. That will bring us ever close to the continuing nuttiness of the national charade, and I thought this would be appropriate, having seen it earlier today:
“I have solved this political dilemma in a very direct way: I don’t vote. On Election Day, I stay home. I firmly believe that if you vote, you have no right to complain. Now, some people like to twist that around. They say, ‘If you don’t vote, you have no right to complain,’ but where’s the logic in that? If you vote, and you elect dishonest, incompetent politicians, and they get into office and screw everything up, you are responsible for what they have done. You voted them in. You caused the problem. You have no right to complain. I, on the other hand, who did not vote — who did not even leave the house on Election Day — am in no way responsible for what these politicians have done and have every right to complain about the mess that you created.” — George Carlin
You and he are making the invalid assumption that any politician elected will be a crook who will vote for bad policies. Someone who doesn’t vote this cycle is like a chicken who stayed at home rather than vote *against* Colonel Sanders.
George Carlin was the only thinking philosopher in the US. How many times did he point out—like here—that truth was the exact opposite of accepted wisdom.
In the US, there is only one politician I know of, that fits the ‘not a crook’ profile: Ron Paul.
It’s a hard sell, but I am making headway in convincing others to vote Libertarian. One older fellow said he now tells everyone who says they don’t like the two main choices and are not planning to vote, that I (me, Chuck) am voting Libertarian. Furthermore, I have been stressing—to those who are Republican—that Libertarians were the original Republican party before Abe Lincoln hijacked it and turned it into the country club for rich-lawyers-who-don’t-want-any-more-rich-people-in-the-US that it is today.
We are getting soaking rains here—at least 2 months too late to make any difference. One of the things I do is record the voice-track for the pm weather forecast for the radio project. Another week of super-hot and humid weather, then it looks like fall will arrive. The oldtimers around here say it will be an early fall. Trees have been dropping nuts since the middle of August, leaves have been turning and dropping since then, too, and squirrels are quite busy collecting the nuts. After a furious round of ant activity around here, they have all but disappeared again—my principal sign of an early fall.
Meanwhile, the state is using resources to harass and jail young kids who want to drink booze while at college
http://www.wishtv.com/dpp/news/local/north_central/excise-police-arrest-126-near-purdue
Geez, teenage drinking from about age 14 was a right in Germany. Nobody ever stepped between a pubescent male and their beer.
And the Indiana National Guard—an out-of-proportion contributor to the US military ranks—is busy using Black Hawk helicopters to land in people’s backyards to eradicate any sign of Mary Jo.
http://www.wishtv.com/dpp/news/indiana/black-hawk-lands-in-womans-back-yard-searching-for-drugs
When I was at Indiana University, Ellettsville was famous for an outdoor drive-in movie theater that showed X-rated movies on Tuesdays and Thursdays, providing a more private setting for, uh, doing things while watching the movies. Nowadays, it is the target for military gun raids on Mary Jo patches. Great use of tax dollars. Vote Libertarian and stop that crap!
Meanwhile, there was an unusually talented group of kids in Houston back in the late ’60’s, who had a psychedelic rock group called Fever Tree. Their lead singer was compared favorably with Jim Morrison—and he WAS good, but I think there was no group as commanding as The Doors, either before or since. Anyway, check out YouTube for Fever Tree. Almost all of their songs are on there (4 albums). Their most popular song only made it to #93 on the Billboard Hot 100, but we played the heck out of it at the college radio station. That was “San Franciscan Girls”. Their rendition of “Hey Joe” is the best ever recorded, IMO. It checks in at nearly 13 minutes. Also worthy is “Jokes Are for Sad People”, which I am listening to right now. I have all 4 of their LP’s, which are becoming quite rare.
The State and its minions really love to hammer on the low-hanging fruit; they bust on pot smokers and growers, teenage beer drinkers, people who are accused of violating any of the zillions of laws, regs, and ordinances they keep dreaming up, and their stooge blue-shirt thugs can be counted on to pull over your vehicle because a brake light is out or the reg sticker on the plate is a day past its deadline while maniacs scream by at 100 MPH swerving all over the highway.
But they seem to have a lot of difficulty catching Wall Street banksters, their own felons, or young Saudis crashing jetliners into skyscrapers.
So what fucking good is the State? And I think we have enough evidence by now to indicate that the chances are real good that if a person is running for political office in such a state, they will probably end up being a crook who enacts bad and/or stupid policies, the late Colonel Sanders notwithstanding. Right now we have a criminal and terroristic State large and in charge and to participate in one of its blatant charades like voting is to either be hopelessly optimistic or a terminal flatliner.
And voting for libertarians is like unto me voting for Pat Buchanan or Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. Hopeless.
What a country.
“If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.”
Emma Goldman 1869-1940
Chuck wrote:
“In the US, there is only one politician I know of, that fits the ‘not a crook’ profile: Ron Paul.”
What about Rand Paul or Gary Johnson? Are they crooks too?
“…teenage drinking from about age 14 was a right in Germany. Nobody ever stepped between a pubescent male and their beer.”
Here, the drinking age for anything but hard liquor is 16. There are relatively few problems with youth drinking. The US has set the drinking age too high. Add to that the idiotic Puritan streak – families that forbid their kids any alcohol – and you get the additional attraction of forbidden fruit.
Even when our kids were little, if we were having wine or something and they wanted to try, why not? The result is unsurprising: neither of them likes the taste of beer, wine, or anything else alcoholic, and neither of them is terribly interested in acquiring the taste.
Our youngest recently went to a class party. Ages in his class range from 15 to 17, and several kids had beer along. None of them got drunk. He chose not to have any, and this was not a problem. Equally, even though he is only 15, no one would have said anything if he had wanted a beer. There is very little peer pressure to drink, when anyone could if they wanted to.
That’s not to say there are no drinking problems here. Certain groups of people tend to buy cheap spirits, with the goal of getting totally smashed. That’s typically not kids, but more likely people in their 20s. Stereotypically immigrants from Eastern Europe, though that is a bit of an overgeneralization.
There is an important distinction between the drinking age in Europe and drinking age in the US. In the US we let 16 year old teens drive. I’d think lowering the drinking age to 16 without changing the driving age to 18 would lead to more alcohol related driving accidents. I’m also not in favor of increasing the driving age to 18. Can you imagine the stink that would create? Especially for those teens living in rural/suburban areas where mass transit isn’t available.
It’s true that the driving age here is 18 – for cars. However, teens can have motorcycles starting at 14 (for a moped) and 16 (for something with a bit of oomph). Granted, you can pretty only kill yourself on a motorcycle, but the accident rate is not particularly high.
The situation in the US is, of course, different. It may not be possible to overcome the mentality of “alcohol-as-sin”; this is deeply ingrained in certain segments of the society (including much of my family – I know it well). But what’s the deal with a drinking age over 18? This happened after I left the US, and I genuinely don’t understand what motivated it. Every other common measure of adulthood is set to 18 (voting, serving in the military, entering into binding contracts, etc.). What makes alcohol so dangerous that it had to be set to 21?
I’m not sure what the justification is for a drinking age, anyway. My dad and uncle gave me a shot of straight booze when I was about three years old. I didn’t drink anything alcoholic again until I was in college.
What’s very strange is that it’s illegal in North Carolina for parents to serve even wine or beer to their own minor children in their own home. As if that’s any of the government’s business.
If it were me, I’d eliminate all controls and taxes on alcoholic beverages. Humans got along fine for a couple million years without such interference. The only reason it seems normal to most people now is the old fish/water thing.
As to voting, as an anarchist I don’t believe in it all. But if we must have it, I’d set the voting age at 30 or more, and insist that anyone who voted must have at least a minimum of, say, $100,000 in assets and be able to pass a comprehensive test to illustrate that they’re even capable of understanding the issues they’re voting on.
As to driving, why have any age limit or requirement for licenses? It’s not like they keep bad drivers off the roads. I’ve known many 12-year-olds I’d trust to drive, and many 30 year olds I wouldn’t. Having an age limit or license requirement does nothing useful. And this whole drunk driving thing is bogus. It should be completely legal to drive with any BAC. What should be penalized isn’t drunk driving, but drunk wrecking. If someone is driving while impaired and kills someone, that driver should be executed. As a nice side benefit, that would certainly cut down on drunk driving, one way or the other.
I more or less agree. It isn’t a specific BAC that is the problem, but the impairment. One doesn’t need to wait for a crash if the impairment is clear (weaving across lanes, or whatever).
On the other hand, BAC makes for an easy, objective measure. Which isn’t all bad, as laws that can be applied subjectively are dangerous. There was a driver here who lost his license a couple of weeks ago. He was pulled over by the police, and lost his license for driving while “tired”. Granted, I do not know the whole story, but the potential for abuse here is clear…
One of the 16 year old girls in my Year 11 class said her parents let her have wine with meals, and at the time you could get a car or motor bike licence at 16. I think that to drink in public you had to be 18, but parents had a fair bit of discretion at home.
My mum was given a sip of beer by her uncle at 14, she says she immediately ran outside and spat it out. Her father was furious but it turned her into a lifelong teetotaler – almost. (My father and I persuaded her to have a glace of wine a decade or two back.)
I think teaching kids at home how to handle alcohol and learn their limits is a really good thing.
The rules in the US are insane related to both alcohol and driving. Aldi had Gluwein on sale for half-price a couple weeks back, and I bought some for the Xmas holidays for those in the family who like it (it would be horrifically expensive if it weren’t for Aldi). Here I am, a grown man of, well, er, Medicare age, even though I don’t look a day over 60, but I have to show my driver’s license to buy friggin’ Gluhwein.
I, too, favor raising the driving age—to 21. Eighteen is not high enough. There was a quite noticeable absence of honking horns and squealing tires in Germany. In fact, that is so noticeable on returning to the US. Every time I hear squealing tires, a quick look reveals it is a young teen. My memory of life in Germany is fading, but I believe the driving age is 20 or 21. However, in order to get a license, one must take a driver training course, which is not cheap. It is about €3,000. Young people have to save up, which pushes the effective age most people get a driver’s license to 25 or so. If they continue going to school to 25 (parents have to support kids who want to go to school until they are 25), instead of getting a job, then they may be 30 before they can afford the training.
Of course, unless you live in the rural sticks, one does not need a car in Germany. In fact, my family criticizes me boldly and blatantly for being so low-class as to not have had a car the whole time I was in Germany. They refuse to believe that the trip into Berlin from Strausberg—which was 90 minutes via every-20-minute S-Bahn (about 20 minutes shorter with the once-an-hour Regional Bahn) would be well over 2 hours via auto, and then just try and find parking at your destination. Geez, the American Way is itself a religion, just like Noam Chomsky maintains. No way I would drive anywhere in Germany, if it could be avoided. What Americans do not understand, is that roads are at the bottom of the priority list in Germany, and building more roads and sorting out traffic snarls and parking problems are not even on the radar as problems needing to be solved over there.
As to Greg’s politician question, I was thinking—but did not say it—of people who were already in office. Actually, I am not at all smitten with Rand Paul, and can barely tolerate Ron. My ideal was Bill Weld, governor of Mass. when I first lived there. I believe Johnson is in the Weld mold, so I am more favorably inclined to him than Ron or Rand. But I believe both Ron and Rand are honest.
And before you ask, my biggest problem with Ron Paul—outside of his religious beliefs, which bear too heavily on his politics—is that, if you are going to run for office, you MUST know how to couch your criticisms. Paul failed miserably on the issue of 911 being Islamic revenge for our ‘controlling’ their region of the Earth. A guy like Chomsky, who never intends to run for public office, can afford to say what he feels without regard to being delicate. But when you actually have to first convince people that their views are wrong, Paul just does not have it. Fortunately, the Indiana Libertarians have learned this lesson and are very effective in not treading on people’s religious-zealot-like views of our government. Ron Paul is like Utah’s Orrin Hatch and Indiana’s Dick Lugar. They all are surrounded by people who tell them how great they are, that they begin to believe it. A few years back, Hatch got the shock of his life when he discovered that nobody outside Utah likes him at all. It took a primary election for Lugar to get the message that he was being retired. People in Indiana love governor Mitch Daniels, but he definitely does not have the charisma to get elected outside of Indiana politics. Same was true for vice-president Dan Quayle. Like Bob Dole, he believed the Republican party owed him a chance, but there is no way he would ever get elected again—even if he and Algore were best buddies, and Quayle was actually the smarter of the 2 (which everyone who knew them both, said).
As far as “teaching” kids to handle alcohol, I am not sure such a thing is possible. I agree with Brad’s example: make it one of the possibilities, but by all means, don’t push it. There are alcoholic teenagers in Berlin (we were good friends of the parents of one), but generally, when there is no puritan stance on the issue, it is not forbidden fruit that must be tested. Kids in the US are repressed in many ways, then when they go off to college, away from family, they go crazy. I saw that happen in spades back in my college days. Even the super-smart kids who got academic breaks got lost. I lived in what was then known as an “academic wing”. As a senior, because of housing shortages of the era, I was put in with Freshmen. They were totally out-of-control. It was an annoyance to me, but because I spent most of my time over at Radio and TV, it was not a catastrophe. After the first semester, over half flunked out and did not return. Over half! Things were much quieter from then on.
With a tiny handful of exceptions, all the pols and hacks mentioned here and elsewhere are crooks, pure and simple; also liars, and Lord only knows what other wonderful features they may possess. It is a waste of time ascribing to them any decent and positive motives whatsoever. If they had decent and positive motives they wouldn’t be running for political office in the first place. It is a den of thieves, writ large.
So what we have here are two halves of the same Party, the Money half and the War half, or as the late Gore Vidal called it, the two Right wings of the one Party, whereas I see it as the two Left wings of the same Party. And then we have the libertarians, who can’t even get elected as dog-catchers anywhere. The vast public doesn’t wanna hear that stuff; they love the idea of Our Nanny the Almighty State, which dispenses all the goodies so long as they are good little do-bee grrls and boyz. One look at how Mr. and Mrs. Boobus Americanus dress and spend their time is enough to confirm it is a nation of badly spoiled and stupid children. Fat spoiled and stupid children, with ICBMs and aircraft carriers.
But Our Nanny is growing fearful and angry, and is beginning to withhold the toyz and goodies and also to spank her unruly children, because too many of them look to be getting outta control and inciting the other kids.
According to Wikipedia, the minimum age of driving in Germany is 18, and 17 with parental supervision and approval.
Having taught both of my sons to drive, I think the age restriction is a red herring. The simple fact is the majority of drivers shouldn’t be drivers at all. Far too many stupid people have the ability to pilot thousands of pounds of potential destruction, and they do it while putting on makeup, texting, eating and goodness knows what else.
I love driving, and I consider it a skill that one should take pleasure in doing. Most people treat it like they’re using a microwave. Those are the people that should be taking transit.
I don’t think anyone can “teach” how to drink, Chuck, and after years of trying, I don’t even think one can “learn” how to. I do know you can’t drown sorrow, for it know how to swim.
Both of my kids wanted to taste what booze was like at a very young age. Instead of denying them, or feeding them a mixed drink that tastes sweet, I fed them wine, beer and straight scotch. I told them that those were the three basic types of alcohol, and that they should try all three. None of them are very appealing to a young palette, and I could only get them to taste the wine and beer and sniff the scotch. I still can’t get my 18 yr old to even touch alcohol, as he very correctly considers it a poison, and he’s a bit of a health nut and does exercise and eats properly and crap like that.
My 21 yr old also doesn’t like the taste. He tries very hard to like beer, but can only stomach half a bottle. This is an issue, as I don’t like to drink alone!
“I do know you can’t drown sorrow, for it know how to swim.”
I found that out, too, but it took forty years.
Regarding teaching kids to drink. If they want to try I’d rather them do so at home where I can see the effects. I guess drinking is something that can’t be taught, but I can observe and offer advice. Whether that advice is taken is a different story. Ultimately it’s the kids’ responsibility.
I have no objection to letting kids drive at 16. I was 16 years and 5 months when I got my licence, 38 years ago. I don’t love driving, it’s just a means to an end. I take public transport when it’s convenient, and drive, cycle or walk otherwise.
In some of my classes there have been some real dopes, who just loved making a racket. The first year exams took care of them.
I too would prefer Johnson above the others. Hardly know anything about Weld, except that he endorsed Romney, then Obama in 2008. Sounds like a smart guy.
Chuck wrote:
“Here I am, a grown man of, well, er, Medicare age, even though I don’t look a day over 60, but I have to show my driver’s license to buy friggin’ Gluhwein.”
Yeah, tell me about it. When I was in the DC region in 2003, age 45, I was asked for proof of age when buying wine at Giant supermarkets in northern Va. I should have been flattered, but I’m sure the clerk knew I was an old codger and was just following the rule book. (And no one in the US ever checked my signature when buying stuff on my credit card. Crazy.)
Bill wrote:
“My 21 yr old also doesn’t like the taste. He tries very hard to like beer, but can only stomach half a bottle. This is an issue, as I don’t like to drink alone!”
What the hell’s wrong with him? Beer, especially in summer, is one of the things that makes life liveable here.
I drove 1,000 miles this long holiday weekend. Sugar Land to Dallas to Abilene to Dallas to Sugar Land. It is a privilege and a necessity to go do the things that we want to do, namely picking up the FIL in Dallas and going to a 50th wedding anniversary party for the wife’s aunt and uncle in Abilene. The wife really had a good time and so was worth the long drive (and the $250 in gas for the Expedition).
You really don’t want my FIL to drive anywhere. He will be 80 this fall and has lane control and speed control and braking control issues. Basically scares the you know what out of me and that was last year. In my view, one should have to pass a driving test at 75 or so but Texas is about 30 days behind on the tests for the 16 year olds so that would totally capsize the DMV system.
Also made the mistake of asking the FIL about his tax returns after his girl friend whispered in my ear. Turned out that he has not filed 2010 yet but insisted that he was overpaid. We looked for his paperwork yesterday and this morning for about 8+ hours. Horribly frustrating with all his stock dividend 1099s, three rent houses and social security receipts. And we found out that he has some property in Missouri that he bought a couple of years ago…
My dad was one of the best drivers and driving teachers a person could have, but I watched as he got older and his abilities faded. I sure hope mine don’t. I already see that my son does better than me; I hope that is his skills outdoing mine, and not mine slipping. There is no doubt in my mind that we are going to find cell phones outlawed in cars, even with speaker-phone or blue-tooth headsets. The NTSB is preparing to tackle that and have already produced a bunch of radio and TV commercials suggesting that any cell phone use while driving increases danger immeasurably.
There are a few things people must have to make society work, and transportation is one of them. The US forces the automobile on its populace as the only alternative. You cannot live in the US without a car. Yeah, there are a lot of people who should not be on the road, but anybody who works—and that includes a lot of teenagers—needs a car to get to/from work. Same with older folks going about their business. In other societies, there are trains, busses, trams, and underground systems which can actually function better than a car, but taking away driving privileges is a serious threat to life and health in the US.
What other societies is that? That is very true for any large city like Paris, London or Tokyo. Having a car in these cities is actually a detriment as the parking is a nightmare.
But going from city to city is usually a nightmare unless you have a LOT of time. We spent two weeks in France three years ago. Spent 4 days in Paris then took the train down to the Med. Motored a boat up the Midi Canal for a week and then rented two cars and drove to Normandy. It would have taken us three days to get to Normandy via train and then we needed the cars for driving between Utah and Gold beaches. Basically impossible without having a car.
Getting around Europe without a car or being on a coach tour would be a nightmare for me. I don’t know the meaning of traveling light, so getting from a bus or train depot would be a PITA. If I was 20 years old again it might be doable. I’d just choose a hotel on the outskirts where parking isn’t so hard and commute in on the local trains. That’s what I do in the UK where the language isn’t a problem.
Coach tours are usually fairly economical and everything is laid on – nice if you don’t speak the language or know your way around. I’d really like to travel around Germany on my own, I didn’t spend nearly enough time there when I did the coach tour.
Here’s a site with the minimum ages in Germany for various types of licenses:
15 years – Moped
16 years – Small motorcycle, maximum speed 80 km/h
17 years – Cars, with an accompanying adult
18 years – Motorcycles up to 100km/h, Cars, Light trucks
20 years – Motorcycles (provided one has held a license for 2 years)
21 years – Heavy trucks
25 years – Motorcycles (without a previous license)
I had no idea that they had such restrictions on motorcycles! There must have been some hard-learned lessons there, probably having to do with the German autobahn.
– – – – –
On the subject of kids today: Have things changed in the US? I recall desperately wanting out, out, out of the house at 18. My wife, who grew up here in Switzerland, also wanted to move out of her parents house as soon as she possibly could.
Seems to me that this is no longer true. Our kids aren’t quite old enough, but neither of them seems to have any urge to go independent. We know many family where the kids are still living at home while going to college, not just for financial reasons, but because everyone is happy with the arrangment. Has this changed in the US as well, or is it a European thing?
There is a similar shift here. A friend of mine has a daughter who lived with them most of the time until her early 20s. She has since moved out to an apartment she lives in with her boyfriend. When she didn’t live with her parents, I think she lived with her boyfriend in his parents house. When she came back home from living with her boyfriend’s parents, she brought her boyfriend with her.
Greg wrote: “What the hell’s wrong with him? Beer, especially in summer, is one of the things that makes life liveable here.”
Ah, but you forget we live in a country where the majority of critters aren’t trying to kill us. He doesn’t need to drink to forget he’s Australian! 😀
Manitoba banned cell phone and electronic equipment use for drivers a few years back, and a recent follow up study has stated that they should ban the ban, as it’s useless. People who get distracted talking on the cellphone, also get distracted by butterflies, their passengers and whatever odd thought pops into their head. Hence my statement that the majority of drivers should lose their licenses.
It isn’t the device that’s the problem, it’s the idiots using the devices that cause the problems.
OFD wrote: “I found that out, too, but it took forty years.”
I knew I was in trouble when depression handed me a beer and said “Ya’ll hold ma beer, and watch this!” and did a backward 2 1/2 somersault with 2 1/2 twists in a piked position before even hitting the water.
Regarding kids at home. I left home at 16, 17, 18 and finally for real at 19. I was poor, had no furniture and struggled like crazy to get a foot hold.
My kids are staying at home as long as I can keep them here, and they are now 21 & 18. They are loading money into their savings accounts for the day when they do move out. They’ve watched some friends do the “I hate my parents” move out, only to starve and go back with their tail between their legs.
But I may actually beat them out the door. There are hardly any jobs here that aren’t minimum wage or unionized, and I’m not interested in chasing the corporate dream, as it’s too tarnished and dented, anyway. I might move to Alberta to sop up some of the oil money that is flowing there before finally retiring for good, and my kids can become my tenants of the house in Kelowna, until I do.
Kids in the US are not leaving home these days, except to live with a partner. I think one thing driving this, is that with wages not keeping up with prices, they cannot afford to move out. Neither of my kids have been able to make it alone without roommates. Back when I was their age, it was no problem finding an affordable place to live alone. That is no longer the case, and I think that is causing many to just stay at home, rather than risk an unknown roommate.
I actually wouldn’t mind living in Alberta, either. North Carolina is too damned hot for me. Of course, Barbara and I just barely qualify for Canadian residency. We could improve our chances of approval by learning to speak French.
The problem is that the Alberta/Montana border is pretty sparsely populated. Ideally, I’d like to be able to straddle the border with only a short trip back and forth to populated areas in both countries, but it looks like Milk River, Alberta and Shelby, Montana is the only reasonable pair for that.
I never had any problem with trains in France, although I certainly have not travelled a lot there. No question that in Germany you cannot possibly beat me using mass transit with a car. Whether the trip is short or long, trains and subways are significantly faster than cars. Same in England. Although the trains do not run as frequently there as they did under British Rail and London Transport, you cannot possibly beat me with a car from central London to the south coast, or anywhere in between. I once travelled from Gatwick to beyond Devon. It was a 2-day trip by car. The return by train was a matter of hours.
Only if I am limited to a bus, do you have any chance against me.
I got my car licence at 16 years, 5 months. 16 years was the earliest possible then. The lady who took me for my test had never driven a car in her life. She got her licence in the Forties when you just sent in 10/- and they mailed you a licence, and she kept doing that.
Got my bus and truck licence at 18 years 10 months and my motor bike licence at around 20. They’ve tried to take my bus/truck licence away (eyesight problems) but I’ve been able to fight them off. A bit pointless in a way as I haven’t driven a bus since November 1987.
brad wrote:
“Seems to me that this is no longer true. Our kids aren’t quite old enough, but neither of them seems to have any urge to go independent. We know many family where the kids are still living at home while going to college, not just for financial reasons, but because everyone is happy with the arrangment. Has this changed in the US as well, or is it a European thing?”
In the UK kids often go to a different town to go to university, one of my pals , born in Glasgow, was one of the very few exceptions. He got his degree from the University of Glasgow.
A boss I had in around 1990 started saving for his son’s university education when the kid was a newborn. He (and I assume his Mrs) wanted the kids out the door ASAP, so they wanted to send them anywhere that was too far away from home to live. I lived at home while studying at uni till I was almost 22, and would doss down at home when visiting Adelaide. My parents specifically said that was okay. My brother was over 30 when he moved out, and he bought a place 10 doors down the road and came home most nights for meals. Living at home is just so convenient, although I did get annoyed when mum kept babying me into my mid 30s.
Bill wrote:
“Ah, but you forget we live in a country where the majority of critters aren’t trying to kill us. He doesn’t need to drink to forget he’s Australian! :D”
That he’s not an Aussie shows that he has some bad karma from previous lives. There’s nothing much in the suburbs here that’ll do you much harm, unless you live in northern Sydney.
“…and go back with their tail between their legs.”
Too much information, Bill.
Those ages for German driving are interesting. But they have definitely changed since I left (I know they were talking about revising things when I left), because I know several individuals (including cousins in the German family) who would not have been eligible to drive a car until they were 20, but were exchange students to the US, where they got their license at the age of 16. Then, when they returned to Germany, they were eligible for a driver’s license with no training or tests, from possessing a foreign one. I know they were wanting to close that loophole, and it looks like they might have.
The youngest people we knew who had licenses to drive (besides the cousins) were well into their 20’s. Teens around us did not drive over there. With the expensive lessons, I doubt that has changed, even if the driving age has been lowered, which I do not think was a good idea, but probably came about because of pressure—in part—from the exchange student situation.
I am grandfathered in on a license that is good for life. They were talking seriously about instituting regular renewals for new license-holders, like most of the rest of Western culture has.
Good for life? You mean you never have to renew or never have to pay to renew? I have to renew my licence at every birthday where my age is divisible by 5, and hget a doctor’s report on my health and fitness to drive at every even birthday.
“Getting old is hell.” ™
They are just figuring out over there, that there is money to be made by forcing renewals. Up to now, they have rationally believed that—once qualified—you should have the right to drive forever to the end of your days. A concept that the US, which forces driving a car as the only transportation alternative in 98% of the country, should be compelled to adopt if it provides no other alternatives.
The only renewal in Canada is for a recent photo and an opportunity to suck money from our wallets. I think it should require a vision test and a quiz on modern driving laws.
Those tests are irrelevant, IMO. In Indiana, memorizing stopping distances is a big deal. Right, every time I apply the brake, I immediately look at my speed and translate it into how many feet I have, and then use my Superman vision to calculate whether I can stop in time.
The rule in Indiana is that if 2 people stop at an intersection at the same time, the person on the right has first right to go. But will they take it? Never! The tests are wholly irrelevant.
I agree with the Germany method: habits are formed when learning to drive. Require extensive training to get the first license, and everybody will be fine.