Tickets and Your Sorry Selves

Tickets and Your Sorry Selves

Ok, so here’s a scary stat: almost half of teens who drive get a ticket in their first year of driving. Half. You’d think, “Why do we even let teens drive at all?” Fair question, if you’re not a teen.

Speeding is the winner in the hit parade of violations. But like, no means no, and 45 means 45. Got it?

Teens also win on the hit list of accidents and injuries. Car crashes kill more teens than pretty much anything else that kills teens, including vampires. Also, you are 2-3x more likely to die in a car crash as a teen when you’re the driver than as anyone else, so keep that in mind.

If you are caught breaking traffic law or found to be “at fault” in hitting someone, you will receive points on your license. The more points you receive, the more likely it will be that your license gets suspended or revoked.

As bad as the above penalties might seem, they pale when compared with what happens if you are caught with alcohol or drugs in your car. If a cop pulls you over and finds an open bottle or that you’ve been drinking, a ridiculous number of things can happen, all of them negative: license suspension; fines; community service; probation; DUI school; ignition interlock device installation; even jail time. And that DUI School isn’t about how to drive under the influence; it’s about how selfish acts on your part kill innocent people and the odds being even more tilted when alcohol is involved.

So we must diverge into serious homily here: