Young Drivers

Driving a car is more difficult and requires more skill.

At some level, that may be right, certainly in terms of short-term traffic management. However, I think the major difference is that people (of all ages) underestimate both the likelihood and consequence of poor driving (e.g. texting, unsafe speed, tailgating etc). With flying, people of all ages tend to take it very seriously indeed.

+1. 

This TRUE story may be of interest

just before i retired one of my M/cycle dealers had a very nice Ford Escort he had taken in P/X for a new bike. He wanted very little money for it as he just wanted it out the way.

to cut the story short a close friend purchased it for his son who was just about to turn 17.

Then came getting the lad insured.....OVER 3 GRAND.

Mista h

...and condemn me to another year of sitting sober on a Saturday night awaiting the call "can you collect me from the train station?" 

I think not.....

Regards,

Willy.

That price simply reflects the (statistically evident) paucity of skill and care that young drivers have, plus a nice little margin for the insurance company execs.

Is it really an age thing or a personality/intelliegence thing?

It isn't that young people aren't intelligent. We're all hopeless at assessing risk and taking appropriate precautions. Young people have this sense even less developed. They seem less capable of imagining consequences of their actions, especially low-probability/high consequence events. Time-frame is different, too...

Young person: "I'm driving, but if I just respond to this one text, it won't be a problem."

More experienced person: "If I don't break this habit of texting while driving, I'll eventually kill someone".

They in fact, are both correct. One text very likely won't hurt anyone, but a pattern texting whilst driving eventually will. But the more experienced person can aggregate the cumulative risk of texting and draws a better conclusion - they are more responsible. The young person, will make "this one exception", over and over; and one little bit a time, will expose themselves and others to an unacceptable risk.

Tell that to a student pilot having to land his Cessna on a strong crosswind! 

They're probably both difficult in their own ways each, but even with identical risk, the fact is flying a plane offers much less margin for error...and more likelihood of far greater consequences.

A youngster isn't too likely to go with his friends for a "joy fly" either...

Not to mention how a grown man accepts instructions from the passenger seat.

The margin for error when driving a car is very small indeed. A slight moment's inattention will cause an accident. An unintended turn of the wheel, even a couple of degrees will put you into the path of an oncoming car. Glance down at the text you've just received and you're into the back of the car in front. Take a corner too fast for the conditions and you're in trouble.

When flying, there isn't really anything to run into (except the ground - which I'll acknowledge as a significant exception). With a car, we're continuously piloting it through a maze of things, fixed and also moving (unpredictably) which, if we hit them in any substantive fashion, will kill us.

I will agree that the consequences of a plane crash are likely to be greater. Nevertheless, flying somewhere is much safer than driving there.

Its a long time ago now but back in my teenage years when buying a 2nd hand car all that really interested me was`how quick is it`     sod safety features,comfort and all those silly things. i presume the youth of today is just the same.

Mista h

Not in my experience. The children that I meet through our sons are far more mature, thoughtful, worldly and responsible than I, or my peers were at that age. I am constantly impressed by just what nice people they are.

Humm... Just to name a few things you can run into when flying a small airplane : bad weather, ice on wings or in the carburetor, darkness, getting lost, running out of gas, strong winds, low ceiling, power lines, hitting a goose ( flying cyclist), stalling, spinning, spirals...

A piece of cake! 

True enough but none of these arise in a tenth of a second, such that momentary distraction will cause a crash. Flying too fast is also rarely an issue. Fact remains that it is much safer to fly somewhere than to drive there.

What does helmet wearing have to do with this, exactly? Wait, I know, cyclists who don't wear them more-or-less deserve to get hit by cars, don't they?

Give little Johnny one of these,best of both worlds.

A dear friend of mine, cycling in San Diego, swerved to avoid some vagrants under a bridge and came off. Head first into the sidewalk. Despite having the best (Bell) helmet he could buy he spent several months in a coma and came close to being unplugged. Fortunately he's made a near miraculous recovery but I suspect that without a helmet I'd be talking in the past tense about him.

I'd never cycle without a helmet. 

Willy.

This is a very reasonable question on the topic.

I'm 28 of age, and drive about  700 rush-hour-KM's every week.

Usualy it's the (sorry for my expressions) snob, middle aged, lease-car driving smooth-guy who absolutely ignores everything around him and refuses to use any form of safety measures put on cars, such as signaling lights for instance.

I have been signaling this behaviour more and more over time, since my father (who has had a driving school as a second income for petes sake) started to drive lease cars.

I will now claim that my father, who was the one who has tought me to drive propperly, is one of the most anti social people on the road, and he realy does not gives a rats ass about it. Scratches? Dents? Accident? I'm safe right here and the damage gets repaired for free... why bother.

In my opinion, this problem is bigger than the yought making their first miles on the road alone (legaly) And has everyting to do with personality. Irrelevant of age.

You really need to re-think your life, buddy. It is too short for that sort of soul-destroying situation.