It is a little dystopian. On the other hand, clearly the various legal and ethical reasons to not drink and drive aren't helping as much as they could. My unde

It is a little dystopian. On the other hand, clearly the various legal and ethical reasons to not drink and drive aren't helping as much as they could. My understanding, though, is that driver training in the US is a joke compared to other countries. Aside from a lower age requirement, it is incredibly easy to get a learner's permit and driver's license here, so much so that the latter is the primary form of ID for almost everyone. Per the NHTSA[0], > In 2020, 29% of young drivers 15 to 20 years old who were killed in crashes had BACs of .01 g/dL or higher. So teenagers are driving earlier than other countries, but then, our alcohol culture is also pretty weird. There is an expectation of teetotaling until you hit 21. In practice, this means teenagers are sneaking out, frequently by car, to drink. [1] But then you have to ask, why are teenagers sneaking out by car? Well, that's because with only a handful of very dense, urban exceptions, there is no infrastructure to get around any other way. When an American says small town, what they mean is, "a town with a small population that is suprisingly large on the map". And when they say city, what they mean is, "a town with a larger population that is still surprisingly large on the map". These places don't have buses or bike trails or even sidewalks. The whole thing is a mess of unintended consequences from top to bottom. If we had better travel options, kids wouldn't need cars to sneak around. If we had a less puritanical alcohol culture, the kids wouldn't need to sneak around at all. If we didn't have rely on cars so extensively, we could raise driving age and driver test requirements to make the roads safer all around. Maybe instead of looking for the technological easy way out we ought to 1) promote safer forms of travel than every-man-for-himself multi-ton death machines, 2) treat them like the multi-ton death machines they are instead of handing out licenses like candy, and 3) embrace reality to give kids safe outlets to do what they're going to do anyway instead of burying our heads in the sand and pretending our precious little babies would never do anything bad. [0] https://www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/drunk-driving#age-5056 https://www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/drunk-driving#age-5056 [1] The responsible parents I know are the ones who provide a safe environment for teenagers to learn the effects of alcohol, law be damned.