When Nobody Has the Time to Think....

Memorial Day will be here in two weeks, and our nation will celebrate the courage and selflessness of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice, throughout our 234-year history. I can't refrain from wondering, however, how many of our brave men and women in uniform would find themselves, now, in violation of New Jersey law. Imagine an Army that forbids young enlistees from operating vehicles with 2 or more passengers, yet New Jersey, in an unusual moment of legislative bipartisanship, has declared that many active soldiers lack the maturity to drive their comrades.

I confess, this all crept up on me - I had never contemplated the full ramifications of New Jersey's "Kyleigh's Law," until its enactment coincided with my firstborn son's eligibility for Driver Ed. He attends boarding school, and has not trained his sights on a license as a talisman of independence. We have signed him up for Driver Education this summer, but I have just realized that we missed a critical deadline. He will be unable to obtain his Provisional License until next summer; we all took for granted that he would be eligible after his 17th birthday, in February, but he must wait an entire year from the day he receives his Learner's Permit. I don't believe that he, or the world, will be any safer because of this. In fact, I worry that too much time will elapse between his road instruction and his licensing. Kyleigh's Law will no have any serious impact on our lives, nevertheless.

This law was a political sound-byte, crafted hastily, and voted on by politicians who were more terrified of potential opponents' seizure of the issue than they were in considering how it will affect their constituents' lives. This is a law aimed at white, suburban, middle-class teenagers; it might, conceivably, protect one or two of them. It will inevitably wreak havoc in the lives of young, working-class adults, however - the very people who are already suffering the greatest economic hardship today. They will be unable to carpool to work or school, of course, but will also be unable to seek employment in any occupation where they might be asked to transport others. Several 19-year-olds could not, for instance, consider starting up their own house-painting or cleaning businesses. The law allows exemptions for late-night driving, in certain religious or vocational situations, but does not allow similar exemptions for passengers. It allow young parents to drive their own children, but does not offer an exemption for spouses.

Above all, this law perpetuates the infantilization of young, white suburbanites - it assumes that the only reasons 2 or more might seek to travel together would be for frivolous recreation. Not all people under 21 are still "kids." Bill Gates and Steve Jobs had dropped out of college to found their respective empires before their 21st birthdays, and I suspect both were qualified to drive investors and collaborators, if called upon to do so. I mentioned the military, which has always treated 17-to-21-year-olds as adults; our criminal justice system does, also. Only in affluent suburbia is it considered normal for young adults to be anything other than adult. Years ago, I read several stories about young mothers who had abandoned or murdered their newborn infants. When the accounts had inner-city settings, they described a "young woman" or "the mother." The white, suburban subjects were described as "teenaged girls" or "high school students," implying a degree of youthful innocence.

Kyleigh's Law does not address inner-city crime. It does not address substance abuse. It does not really address distracted driving. I am entirely in favor of tougher laws and enforcement for those who try to talk or text on their cellphones while driving. It's very easy to identify the distracted driver - I suspect anybody capable of reading my post can do immediately. Checking the driver's cellphone usage should be as automatic, simple, and lawful as administering a sobriety check. It's not unreasonable to stiffen the penalties for "provisional" drivers who do not observe basic safety laws.

I doubt anyone stopped to question why adding more young drivers to our roads - as this will inevitably do, since they can no longer travel together - will provide net benefits to their safety. New Jersey's legislators, on both sides of the aisle, demonstrated that they are utterly insensitive to issues of environmental degradation and energy dependency. I'd love to think that more high-school students would walk, bike, or bus to school, but I visualize world peace, too. Traffic throughout the state will become even more congested.

Young people will continue to travel in groups, whether by choice or necessity - they will simply have to leave New Jersey to do so. My 16-year-old has been dreaming of a cross-country road trip with friends, following graduation. I will certainly help him rendezvous with his comrades across the Delaware. We are already exploring the possibility of obtaining a Pennsylvania license. My town is very proud of one young woman, who extended a gap-year adventure into a lifetime commitment in Nepal - nobody has ever indicated that she shouldn't drive a truckload of desperate, impoverished refugees to a safe haven. I hope that our lawmakers reconsider their hasty reaction to a single tragedy, and set an example of circumspect deliberation for the same young people they are trying to protect.