New Study Shows Poverty, Not Age, the Key Factor in Teen Crashes

[GePap]

Ozzy, could you please once and for all end these stupid and misguided comparisons of "ageism" to racism or sexism?

Because these are not similar at all. You stop being a "teen" in due course. You rarely (if ever) stop being a woman, or of a particular race.

hence your attempts to say they are the same are incorrect, and if anything detract from your arguement.

[notyoueither]

When are you going to stop raising these stupid and misguided objections, Gepap.

Not only are people discriminated against when they are young, but also when they are old.

Why do you feel the unending need to say they aren't?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by OzzyKP
Considering the poverty rates among teens is far higher than adults - especially middle-aged adults, then wouldn't you think that would have an effect on the results of any study that compared teen & adult fatality rates without first factoring out different income levels?

You mean teens are doubly likely to cause traffic accidents? I think you are shooting your own foot here.

[GePap]

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by OzzyKP


Considering the poverty rates among teens is far higher than adults - especially middle-aged adults, then wouldn't you think that would have an effect on the results of any study that compared teen & adult fatality rates without first factoring out different income levels?

Or do you deny that all the factors you just listed off (and did a good job of) don't apply to poor teens?

Or don't you care?

Or would you rather ignore the effect poverty has on teens because it runs counter to your worldview regarding teenage drivers?

No, that's my point: teens are even more likely to be a hazard on the road, because their even more likely to be inexperienced and poor -- a double whammy.

The way to test your position that its about poverty would be to compare teens and adults, from the same income brackets and driving similar cars, to see who has the higher accident rate. I guarantee it will be teens. Control for age, and you'll see the poverty factor; but control for poverty, and you'll still see the age factor.

You say something reasonable (i.e. treating all new drivers the same, and not singling out teens) then you have to go and blow it by repeating a tired old statement that all teens are crap drivers with nothing to back it up.

Oh Ozzy, teens are crap drivers. Inexperience, the inherent reckless energy of youth, a failure to grasp their own mortality, and the fact that most of them are driving someone else's car all play a role. They're not the only crap drivers. Old people are crap drivers; new drivers are crap drivers; recently-arrived immigrants, especially from the 3rd world, are crap drivers; morbidly obese people are crap drivers. This isn't some kind of mindless prejuidice; it's sociology.

[OzzyKP]

Agreed, NYE. Simply saying you can't compare the two is an insufficient argument, GePap.

Every teen that becomes an adult is replaced by a new teen that has to endure the same injustice his brother went through. This is discrimination imposed on an entire class of people. You can't pluck out an individual and say "oh well he just has to wait a year or two, its not a big deal" that neither addresses nor solves the problem, and the problem is something that affects an entire class of people.

If a factory had deplorable working conditions and they only hired temps, would you shrug it off and say "oh well people only work there for a few months or years at a time, so its not that bad" or would you recognize that every one of those temp workers who leaves that factory is replaced by another one?

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly


No, that's my point: teens are even more likely to be a hazard on the road, because their even more likely to be inexperienced and poor -- a double whammy.

The way to test your position that its about poverty would be to compare teens and adults, from the same income brackets and driving similar cars, to see who has the higher accident rate. I guarantee it will be teens. Control for age, and you'll see the poverty factor; but control for poverty, and you'll still see the age factor.

Thats the entire point of this study!

That's the entire reason I'm posting this, because until now its the first study that even attempted to control for poverty. Up to now it exists in every teen driving study out there and clouds the results. This study does exactly what you request.

And yes, fatality rates among teens ARE higher than middle-aged adults. I never denied that, nor did the study. However the difference, after poverty has been controled, is 40%. i.e. teens have 40% more fatal crashes than adults of the same income level. I'm not denying that. (though it would be interesting to also do a comparison of ALL new drivers regardless of age).

However that 40% difference is less than the difference between men and women (men 77% deadlier). So it is a much smaller risk gap than most people here expect, and I believe it is a risk we can live with.

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly

Oh Ozzy, teens are crap drivers. Inexperience, the inherent reckless energy of youth, a failure to grasp their own mortality, and the fact that most of them are driving someone else's car all play a role. They're not the only crap drivers. Old people are crap drivers; new drivers are crap drivers; recently-arrived immigrants, especially from the 3rd world, are crap drivers; morbidly obese people are crap drivers. This isn't some kind of mindless prejuidice; it's sociology.

Ok, then what is your point? I'm not claiming that teens are perfect drivers. I've never claimed that. I'm claiming that they are much, much better drivers than many make them out to be. And I agree with you that they should be lumped in with other groups of bad drivers like immigrants, old people, fat people, men, whoever. The way we deal with all of those groups is the way we should deal with teens.

My point is that if there are lots of crap drivers out there, why are teens singled out for more punitive restrictions and nothing is done to the other crap drivers? We should put restrictions on all men, and immigrants, and obese people, etc.

[GePap]

Originally posted by OzzyKP
Agreed, NYE. Simply saying you can't compare the two is an insufficient argument, GePap.

Every teen that becomes an adult is replaced by a new teen that has to endure the same injustice his brother went through. This is discrimination imposed on an entire class of people. You can't pluck out an individual and say "oh well he just has to wait a year or two, its not a big deal" that neither addresses nor solves the problem, and the problem is something that affects an entire class of people.

And that still does not change the fact that the discrimination is temporary, as the condition of being that age will end, unles they dies, and therefore irrelevant.

If a factory had deplorable working conditions and they only hired temps, would you shrug it off and say "oh well people only work there for a few months or years at a time, so its not that bad" or would you recognize that every one of those temp workers who leaves that factory is replaced by another one?

Again, irrelevant to my point.

You are trying to compare discrimination based on something permanent to discrimination (in your mind) based on something transient. That difference matters. A woman is a woman at 10, 20, or 50. A Black man is black at 10, 20, 50. A teenager is a teenager from 11 to 18. Then he is an adult. The alleged discrimination ends, period. Therefore the condition of teens is fundamnetally different from that of women, or racial minorities.

It is compounded by the fact that all adults were teens, therefore teens are "ebing oppressed" by individual who have close, intimate knowledge of what being a teen is, because they were all teens. This si again fundamentally different from racial or sexist discrimination, as almost by definition, the oppressor has never experienced what the oppresed suffers.

I have no problem with you fighting what you perceive as an injustice. But trying to equatre apples to oranges can only serve to muddle, if not negate your message because whatever message you have is lost in the falseness of the connections you attempt to force with your rhetoric.

If you trully believe that this is discrimination, then there is no need to create false connections to different struggles. If your struggle is worthwhile, it should be able to stand on its own, without imaginary linkis to previous struggles.

[OzzyKP]

And a factory with horrific conditions still has horrific conditions when its workers leave.

Are you saying it would be unjustified to compare a factory with poor working conditions where workers work there for an average of 12 months, and a factory where workers work for 40 years? If the conditions are the same, the justifications are the same, the problems caused to the workers the same, everything else is the same except the workers in one factory work there for a shorter period of time than the other factory, would you treat them as entirely seperate incidents?

Or would you see them as both part of the exact same problem?

Cause that is what I am saying. Whether someone faces oppression for 10 years or 70, its still oppression and its still wrong. Whether there is a distant light at the end of the tunnel or not is irrelevant and doesn't make any fundamental changes to the situation.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Ozzy, leaving aside all the methodological problems, here's what your own study says:

Teen drivers are worse than other drivers, even when you control for poverty.
Poor teen drivers are worse than teen drivers in general.

So what's our evil, evil society's response to this?

Let teens drive.
Charge them more for insurance.
Charge poor teens more than teens in general.

The study, though deeply flawed, is interesting. The cries of "oppression," however, are laughable.

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly
Ozzy, leaving aside all the methodological problems, here's what your own study says:

Teen drivers are worse than other drivers, even when you control for poverty.
Poor teen drivers are worse than teen drivers in general.

So what's our evil, evil society's response to this?

Let teens drive.
Charge them more for insurance.
Charge poor teens more than teens in general.

The study, though deeply flawed, is interesting. The cries of "oppression," however, are laughable.

No, our evil, evil society's response to this is to impose more and more restrictions on all teens, greatly distort the extent of the problem of teen driving leading to a lot of disrespect and bigotry, propose taking away their licenses altogether, and then do nothing at all about bad drivers who aren't teens.

Why don't we take away the licenses from men? Why not from the elderly? Why not from the poor?

Why don't we require that all poor drivers have a limit on how many passengers are in their cars? Or what hours they can drive? Or maybe we should put tracking devices in the cars of the poor so we know exactly where they go? Or black boxes that tell you exactly how fast they drive so if they go over the speed limit you can take the car away from them later?

Cause honestly its more justified to do all that stuff to the poor than it is to do it to teens.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by OzzyKP


No, our evil, evil society's response to this is to impose more and more restrictions on all teens, greatly distort the extent of the problem of teen driving leading to a lot of disrespect and bigotry, propose taking away their licenses altogether, and then do nothing at all about bad drivers who aren't teens.

You've lost me. Teens can get drivers licenses, same as anybody else. They pay for insurance based on their multiple risks factors (including age, poverty and gender), same as anybody else. What's the problem?

[notyoueither]

Do people who have never driven have to get the GL's when they are over a certain age?

Charging more for new drivers makes sense, why add to it because someone is a certain age?

[notyoueither]

We've recently banned that practice in Alberta, btw.

No more charging someone through the nose because they are 18. Charge them the same as any other new driver and then adjust based on their record, not a presumption of incompetence and carelessness.

[MRT144]

why have insurnace companies calculate risk at all anyway?