Then again I was only 17, in school uniform and looked about 12. Took ages to convince the cops I was actually old enough to drive!
Since you've mentioned school twice now, and I hope you don't mind me asking, why were you still at school at 17? You don't have to answer, I'm just trying to understand the circumstances.
As for putting further restrictions on youngsters, I'm not a fan. I was part of a terrible generation. We were given full driving licences at 17, with cars paid for with our full-time jobs (you were allowed to have them at 16 back then), and we were a bunch of hooligans smashing cars up all over the place. An entitled bunch of scum bags, disrespectful and poorly behaved. I smashed a few cars up myself, and I often look back and I'm appalled by my behaviour. Someone could have been killed.
Since then, car insurance for youngers has gone up even more, tests are harder to pass, and you're not given a full driving license when you do. You're also not allowed to go and get real jobs, yet further education will now skint you out, you're expected to behave like adults, but still treated like children. Pubs and shops won't serve you booze anymore, and my generation and above have destroyed the country and sold your futures short.
Youngsters get a bad rap. The fact that there is one in this thread actually calling for harder driving restrictions just goes to show how much you genuinely aren't like the hoodlums that came before you.
It's simple fact that young and inexperienced drivers are more dangerous behind a wheel. One road death is a death too much. But aren't younger drivers less dangerous than they were even a few years ago (genuine question, as I believe I have read that somewhere but don't have a source)?
I just wonder how many more privileges and opportunities that were afforded to us lot there is left to take away from younsters? My driving license is the single most important qualification I have to date. It's given me more prosperity opportunities than anything else.
If I wasn't allowed to drive in the dark or have someone sat in a passenger seat, I don't think I would ever have got to where I am. I consider myself very lucky in that regard, and as a father, I'm really worried that our constant bashing of young people is another example of us pulling the ladder up behind us?