Reckless Teenager
But What About the Parents?
By Daniel Muniz

There was a headline on ABCNews.com that read:

3 Teens Dead After Thrillseeker's Wreck

It was a very sad story in which three high school students in Wolcott Connecticut tragically died in a horrific traffic accident. The driver was a 17 year old high school senior who was heading home after school was canceled for the day. The other victims included his 14 year old sister and her 15 year old friend. Their car had hit the back of a boat that was being towed which caused them to skid and slam into a utility pole.

However, what made this fatal accident seem rather ominous was that the teenage driver had just gotten out of a 90-day suspension of his driver’s license. He had been arrested for driving while intoxicated in which he had caused a car crash. And in the year before, he had also received a traffic ticket for speeding.

Obviously, a reckless teenager behind the wheel is a recipe for disaster.

But what I found bothersome was the public outcry insisting that state legislatures ought to do more in placing additional restrictions on teenagers who are bad drivers.

I don’t disagree that there are plenty of states that are far too lenient in allowing kids to get back behind the wheel after they have been cited for bad or dangerous behavior. Driving on our public roads is a privilege instead of a right and if someone abuses that privilege, then it ought to be taken away from them especially if that person is a teenager. And some states have already done just that since they recognize that teenage drivers lack the maturity to handle a vehicle responsibly which could inevitably lead to tragedy.

However, my beef is not the absence of more legislation but the absence of more parenting.

In the absence of laws, it is incumbent for parents to do something called parenting. Instead of relying on the government to take away a teenager’s driver’s license or to place excessive restrictions on driving, parents ought to step up to the plate and do it themselves.

By exercising parental authority, parents can take the necessary precautions to ensure the safety of their children like taking away the car keys and confiscating the car. After all, the car keys and the car had to come from somewhere and whoever gave driving privileges to their kids can just as easily take them away.

Overall, it is simply unrealistic for someone to expect the government to solve all of their problems and also do all of their thinking for them. The state may be helpful in certain circumstances of life but there is one very important question that every parent needs to ask:

Who ought to have the greatest responsibility in ensuring the safety of your own children; the government or you?

Unfortunately, there are too many people who have allowed themselves to fall prey to the allure of the nanny-state. In fact, some are willing to blame a state legislature for not doing enough in their personal lives. So in a perverse way, they tend to see the solution resting with the government instead of with their own parenting.

For instance, a minor in high school who is arrested for drunk driving should have had his or her driver’s license suspended for a lot longer than 90 days. Even so, where is the parent in all of this?

Adults have to actually become parents to their children instead of being their best friends. That means not indulging their children with even more privileges and more luxuries when it is time to say no. Parenthood is not easy and exercising sound judgment and making good decisions is difficult at best especially when you have a teenager who is absolutely furious at you for making these restrictions.

So if a kid is going down the path of being a thrill seeker and a maniac on the road, then a parent has to forget about what the state is responsible for and step in and intervene before tragedy strikes. And as this incident vividly illustrates, an accident involves so much more than an immature teenager getting killed because other people had to die as well. It is very unfortunate but tragedies like this happen all the time all over the country in which innocent bystanders and passengers are also seriously injured or killed.

Admittedly, parents cannot control the actions of their children but they can play a huge role in either limiting their impact or in not enabling their offspring to create bigger problems down the road. Parents can make good choices or they can make bad ones when it comes allowing their children to drive, especially when there are already plenty of warning signs right out there in front of them.

In summary, there are some teenagers who simply do not understand how dangerous driving a car really is and some may not even care because they are not mature enough to consider such ramifications. Although parents can only do so much, there are too many incidents like this in which parents could have done a lot more to prevent a tragedy.

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