{"id":580,"date":"2007-11-08T01:51:41","date_gmt":"2007-11-08T07:51:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/?p=580"},"modified":"2007-11-08T01:51:41","modified_gmt":"2007-11-08T07:51:41","slug":"drivers-ed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/?p=580","title":{"rendered":"Driver&#8217;s Ed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Law of Unintended Consequences <a href=\"http:\/\/sports.espn.go.com\/espn\/page2\/story?page=easterbrook\/071107\">strikes again<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>TMQ urged drivers&#8217; ed teachers to teach young people not to drive in caravans, which cause distractions and crashes. Daniel Barbour of Richmond, Va., notes in a comment that could apply to the laws of many states, &#8220;Virginia&#8217;s new laws regarding the number of passengers new drivers are allowed to have in their cars actually promote caravan driving by young drivers. Virginia&#8217;s laws state that: &#8216;If you are under 18 and hold a learner&#8217;s permit or a driver&#8217;s license, Virginia law says you may only carry one passenger who is under age 18 while you hold a permit and during the first year that you drive. After that, you may only carry three passengers who are under age 18, until you reach age 18.&#8217; While the obvious intent of this law is to help prevent the new driver from becoming distracted by passengers, my personal experience with this a few years ago while I was that age is that this law indirectly promotes caravan driving, which as you pointed out is a very big distraction, especially for the lead driver. For example, if a group of six friends under the age of roughly 18 &#8212; it depends on how old they were when they obtained their licenses, otherwise the three-passenger rule might be in effect &#8212; want to drive somewhere, they are essentially legally required to take three separate cars, all of which will inevitably follow each other around town, caravan-style. By trying to remove one distraction from teen drivers, state legislatures have practically mandated another.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Law of Unintended Consequences strikes again: TMQ urged drivers&#8217; ed teachers to teach young people not to drive in caravans, which cause distractions and crashes. Daniel Barbour of Richmond, Va., notes in a comment that could apply to the laws of many states, &#8220;Virginia&#8217;s new laws regarding the number of passengers new drivers are &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/?p=580\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Driver&#8217;s Ed<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BzKF-9m","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}