Well, my sister got in a accident tonight...

[MrBond]

It only takes a close call to make you paranoid the rest of your young driving career. A few years ago, the second winter after I had my license, I was going to school in my truck. There's a ditch about 6 ft deep on one side of the road, and a smaller ditch and a wheat field on the other side. This road was way too narrow for two cars, barly big enough for my truck. It had just snowed, and I was going about 35. Which was too fast, as I felt my truck drifting, so I (over)corrected and bounded through the wheat field. Ripped off a running board, lost my muffler, the spare tire (stowed under the bed) dropped out, and as I found out later, I punctured the gas tank ever so slightly. I got out, tossed the parts in the back, drove through the wheat field to the road I had just crossed, and took a different road to school. This road had a 8ft deep ditch, probably 25 feet across, and it was full of water. I think I went 5 mph until I got past it, and then went into town.

My parents were very cool about it. I drove a beater truck for a reason, they told me. I felt bad about the wheat field, but it was still young and I didn't do much damage. I think I was shaking for three hours after the incident.

 

[ChrichtonsGirl]

And I think there are more horrible older male drivers.

From what I see where I live, some young teenage girls drive terribly - they've got five pounds of garbage hanging from their rear view mirror, they're yacking with their friend in the passenger seat, waving at boys standing on the sidewalk, forgetting where they're going and swerving over a lane or two at the last minute, trying to keep their hair looking nice while they've got the windows down....while the teenage guys I see driving are very focused, albeit very fast. So in my experience, teenage girls are more distracted drivers while the guys are more deliberately reckless. And it seems like younger distracted drivers are more likely to get in accidents because they don't have enough experience in handling a car than simply reckless drivers, who manage to scare everyone else out of their way.

By the time they hit their 30's, it seems like a lot more male drivers are driving hostile (yelling, gesturing, tailgating), talking on their cell phones and in a tremendous hurry to get someplace. I see far, far more dangerous male drivers in the 25-50-yr. old range. Again, it seems like women are more distracted by what's going on in the car while men are more focused on taking risks with what's outside the car. But in older women (again, in my experience and observations), when older women get distracted, they slow down, not speed up like men do.

Then by the time we're all 70 or 80 years old, most of the male population has died off anyway, so all that's left are bad old lady drivers. When I do see an older couple in a car, it's almost always the woman who's driving (and driving very, very badly). My grandmother gets rides from a friend who's in her late 80's who seems to think stop signs are optional. Of course she creeps through the intersections at 10 MPH, so it's unlikely she's going to hit anyone, but still...

 

[Viperoni]

8 months since I got my license and my parents still wont let me drive