Driver's Ed should be harder, and require refresher courses

[catsix]

Broomstick said:
When I take my refresher courses for flying airplanes I’ve never had to take even 1 hour off from work, much less “days”. I can’t imagine that a refresher course for driving a car would require a week off work!

Flying airplanes is a hobby. I don’t need to be able to fly an airplane to have an income.

Personally, I’d like to see driver’s licenses treated more like pilot’s licenses - requirements for classroom instruction, a serious test rather than the crap multiple choice you get for driving, minimum number of instructional hours behind the wheel, published minimum standards, and serious testing of them in order to get the license, followed by periodic retesting, retesting/retraining after every accident or moving violation, and periodic physicals to make sure you are capable of managing the automobile.

Because driving a car is directly comparable to having an expensive hobby that few people have the means to pursue.

Ah, well… I can dream…

If you think that a driver’s license should be anything like the recreational pilot’s license that you have, yes, you are dreaming. The average person in rural America has no need to obtain a pilot’s license so that they can make a living, thus they don’t suffer if it costs thousands of dollars to get one.

You should be well aware of the impacts of being unable to provide for your general survival, and you want to throw more obstacles in the way for this?

Oh, by the way - the pilot pays for the retraining and retesting in aviation, and has to provide the airplane for the tests. Why can’t this apply to drivers of cars?

Could you currently afford a thousand dollar driver’s license so you can go job hunting? Those who are discussing changing our system to be like Britain are talking about a place where it costs about 1000$ - 2000$ US.

Driver provides car, pays for the tester’s time, possibly a fee which I assume will be less than what we pay as pilots, perhaps $20 or $25 (like driver’s renewals now). Let’s say every 5 years. Or every 10. Is that so unreasonable? Particularly since doing well at the review avoids having to spend more money.

I"m already paying 28$ every four years for a driver’s license renewal, and having to sit at the DMV for an hour waiting for them to get around to taking my picture. I sincerely doubt that this new fee of yours will replace the existing one, and the course time and test is only going to add to the amount of time that I would be spending at the DMV.

Yes, it’s unreasonable.

Do you think they’d pay attention if you said “If you don’t pass this 90 minutes you will have to take a class, but if you do pass it then see you next decade.”?

Nope. I don’t think you’re going to see people pay attention any more in traffic school than they already do. Which is, not at all.

Again - if you’re fantastic driver, yeah, it’s a hassle - but think of all the idiots who CAN’T do that and are off the road until they improve, leaving more room for you to drive.

They won’t be off the road. They’ll just drive without licenses like they already do.

[casdave]

Just because it is a necessity to drive, it doesn’t mean a driving licence should be over easy to obtain.

In the UK if you cannot drive, it is a severe impediment to your employment, our lifestyles have changed to such an extent that I might have to drive 30 or 40 miles to a dentist, shopping is a 20 mile round trip, work is another 40 miles round trip.

Those distances are not the issue, its where those directions take you, public transport does not begin to provide a service where I need to go, and this is true for most UK citizens.

I agree that its not just the driving training, though that has to be a big part of it. It appears to me that many US citizens seem to think of driving as a god given right, woe betide anyone who dares to put up fuel prices and interfere with this right.

I also agree with the implied message from some posters, that enforcement is the key. If someone loses their licence because they are banned, or they cannot pass their test, then this suggests far more vigorous enforcement.

It is not an excuse of any kind to say that if you make the driving training harder then folk will dirve anyway, because if they do then they must be punished.

We have atuomatic numberplate recognition systems on our traffic police vehicles, it ‘sees’ and reads a numberplate and brings up an alarm, stating if the car is insured, roadworthiness tested, and also if the vehicle owner is a valid licence holder, the only thing left for the police to do is to stop the vehicle and nick the driver - I expect this technology or some variant is used in the US.

We take a very much less sympathetic view to drunk drivers, kill someone with a car and you run the risk of being prosecuted for ‘Death by dangerous driving’, I have seen jails terms in excess of 9 years for this.
Drink drivers get an instant 18 month ban plus a very large fine - for a first offence, jail is the next option.

Yet I have seen US police simply lock a drunk driver up for the night and do no more than that.

Driving without insurance gets you a fine of at least £200, plus you have to pay to recover your car that has been seized and you must produce a certificate of insurane when you do collect your car, this would be the minimum.

Our law enforcement is not all that onerous to be honest, you need to be doing something noteworthy to get the attention of the police but its certainly enough that if you lose your licence, then it will make life extremely difficult, and the increased insurance cost is a real crippler.

[Influential_Panda]

I was fifteen with maybe ten hours of driving time under my belt. It was the summer before my 16th birthday. I took the teacher’s car out for about ten minutes, hit the interstate for another five minutes, pulled off on the shoulder and let another kid drive. Teacher said “good job” and handed me a voucher for my Driver’s license. One month later I walked into the DMV, handed them the slip and got a driver’s license.

IIRC, this was in 2002.

My interview test at Red Lobster was more difficult than this.

[Claptree]

I don’t know what’s been said so far in this thread, but I agree vehemently with the title of it. So there.

[Cat_Whisperer]

This is my personal crusade. I donated money to The AMA Foundation for Traffic Safety this year, and I’ll do it again next year. I’d volunteer with them if they were in town. The stats for Alberta per year (province of about three million people):

• 100,000 collisions
• 400 traffic deaths
• 27,000 injuries

Here’s my wish list:

• Re-training after a certain amount of violations (you’ve proven you don’t know how to drive properly).
• Drinking age 18, driving age 21. Driving is serious business.
• No road test without a set amount of hours in car driving with certified instructor, NOT parents or family (all parents and family do is teach you their bad habits). Instructors should teach you how to do everything you will need to do, not just sit and nod off while you tool around the back streets - like it was noted already, Advanced or Defensive driving instructing should be mandatory.
• Extremely strict controls on certified instructors and testing facilities - the British model seems fairly comprehensive.
• Places that offer driving instruction and/or car insurance not allowed to do road testing. I think we are having a situation in Calgary right now where these things are combined, and I suspect a lot of potential insurance customers are being handed their licenses without earning them.
• Re-testing every 10 years until 65, then at 70, then every year after that (including physical). You’re retired - you have something better to do?
• Make it easy to find local driving laws. I’ve looked for them for Calgary, and have never been able to find them.
• Grades of license for how large the area you learned to drive in is. Someone who learned to drive in Butthole, Saskatchewan should NOT be legally allowed to drive in Calgary (or Chicago, or New York or LA or Toronto) without re-training, but they are.
• Enforcement is a good point - I would suggest a second tier of police people who are only traffic officers, and hire about 10 times more of these than regular cops. Put red light cameras everywhere. Make it so people can be assured that somewhere on their route every time they get in the car, they will encounter a traffic law enforcement agent. People will start to get the message about breaking traffic laws.

If want some shocks to your system, search on “Canada’s Worst Driver” on Youtube and watch the videos. Those are legal, licensed Canadian drivers on that show. They don’t know the simplest road signs, they can’t drive in a straight line (forget backing up), and they certainly don’t know anything more complicated than that, and they are just like many millions of drivers on the roads in Canada and the US. The excuse that everyone needs their license to get to work so driver training should be as easy as possible is utter bullshit - just ask any of the tens of thousands of people who are permanently crippled in automobile collisions every year. I don’t consider that the cost of doing business, and the cost is certainly far too high for my taste.

[Shagnasty]

@featherlou

This is my personal crusade. I donated money to The AMA Foundation for Traffic Safety this year, and I’ll do it again next year. I’d volunteer with them if they were in town. The stats for Alberta per year (province of about three million people):

• 100,000 collisions
• 400 traffic deaths
• 27,000 injuries

Here’s my wish list:

• Drinking age 18, driving age 21. Driving is serious business…

I would love it if every driver in North America were as experienced and tested as well as an airline pilot but that is not realistic. I could understand these types of comments coming from people in Europe but not in Canada. You can literally lose your entire life by not having a driver’s license in the U.S. I live in the greater Boston area which has one of the better mass transit systems in the U.S. but we have none, absolutely, none of that where I live within even 10+miles. If I lost my driver’s license, it would literally mean that I would lose my job, my 1st grade daughter would have too be pulled out of her great school, and much, much worse. I would simply have to continue driving because even tens of thousands of dollars in penalties or even a few nights in jail would be extremely mild compared to the alternatives. I started driving by myself to run errands at 14 due to extreme family circumstances and I got my full license on my 15th birthday. There was literally no other choice for us and tons of people that don’t live in a city proper have to deal with the same thing.

[Critical1]

losing a license for a dangerous driver could end their life as they know it? bummer, better them than someone else.

putting people in jail for driving w/o a license would suck and create problems along the lines of putting them in jail for pot so screw it, just take their cars and auction them off. unless you can prove the car was stolen then sell the car no matter who owns it.

if the laws change people wont magically lose a license, anyone with an existing license will be grandfathered in. and people who know that they will have to spend money to get one will have to plan for it. people over 18 should have to take classes as well as drive lessons.

as for what you can possibly learn in a refresher course after 17 years of driving? my parents took a voluntary class when the got their latest motor home and learned plenty and you are talking about people with over 40 years driving each.

I have more training in the field of driving than 99% of the planet and I learn stuff about driving on a regular basis.

[casdave]

You can literally lose your entire life by not having a driver’s license in the U.S.

I take it you actually mean ‘extremely seriously inconvenienced’ rather than to become a fatality.

If you knew this would be the consequence of dangerous driving, of drunk driving, or of speeding well above the limits then perhaps you would be more careful.
You drive without a licence and insurance, a 6 week jail term will help change your mind to a differant point of view.
(in the UK if you double the speed limit you are banned, on a second occasion, or perhaps a particularly dangerous example of speeding then its a prison term)

Perhaps it is an urban legend, but I read somewhere that during the years of the Vietnam war, more US citizens died on the roads than were killed in action.

Time after time drivers behave badly on the roads when they know better, when drivers are given the chance of further compulsory training or loss of licence, it is surprising how many drivers take the education, and that there is actually nothing wrong with their driving knowledge, they simply chose to break road safety rules.

[catsix]

casdave said:
If you knew this would be the consequence of dangerous driving, of drunk driving, or of speeding well above the limits then perhaps you would be more careful.

It already is the case that people can lose their licenses and go to jail over driving infractions. Doesn’t change the way I drive.

You drive without a licence and insurance, a 6 week jail term will help change your mind to a differant point of view.

They have to catch you. It might be easier to scan a license plate and find out if the car is uninsured, but to find out if the driver doesn’t have a license, the cops have to pull them over first. Thousands upon thousands of people drive with suspended or revoked licenses every day.

Time after time drivers behave badly on the roads when they know better, when drivers are given the chance of further compulsory training or loss of licence, it is surprising how many drivers take the education, and that there is actually nothing wrong with their driving knowledge, they simply chose to break road safety rules.

Making them sit in class upon class is not going to change this.

featherlou said:
Drinking age 18, driving age 21. Driving is serious business.

Which makes people pretty unemployable until they turn 21. What are they supposed to do for the three years after high school before they can drive under your scheme? How are they going to make a living?

No road test without a set amount of hours in car driving with certified instructor, NOT parents or family (all parents and family do is teach you their bad habits). Instructors should teach you how to do everything you will need to do, not just sit and nod off while you tool around the back streets - like it was noted already, Advanced or Defensive driving instructing should be mandatory.

I’m sure this would be very affordable once it is granted a state-enforced monopoly.

Places that offer driving instruction and/or car insurance not allowed to do road testing. I think we are having a situation in Calgary right now where these things are combined, and I suspect a lot of potential insurance customers are being handed their licenses without earning them.

Well the good news is that in Pennsylvania it’s the Department of Transportation that does the testing.

Re-testing every 10 years until 65, then at 70, then every year after that (including physical). You’re retired - you have something better to do?

How nice of you to assume that everyone over 70 is retired. I already pay 28$ every four years for my driver’s license. How much is your plan going to cost me?

Grades of license for how large the area you learned to drive in is. Someone who learned to drive in Butthole, Saskatchewan should NOT be legally allowed to drive in Calgary (or Chicago, or New York or LA or Toronto) without re-training, but they are.

Way to kill tourism. No more family road trips should be great for the already suffering economy.

Enforcement is a good point - I would suggest a second tier of police people who are only traffic officers, and hire about 10 times more of these than regular cops. Put red light cameras everywhere. Make it so people can be assured that somewhere on their route every time they get in the car, they will encounter a traffic law enforcement agent. People will start to get the message about breaking traffic laws.

That’ll be expensive. Good thing all those new cops and red light cameras are going to generate tons and tons of revenue in order to cover their salaries. Since it will probably be pretty tough to pay for millions of new police officers to cover every square inch of road in the US, the states will have to lower the speed limits everywhere in order to create more speeders. Also, they’ll have to put up more stop signs and traffic lights to get those infractions. And of course we’ll have to deal with the increase in car accidents that happen in places with red light cameras as well.

Great ideas. You’ve put several million people out of work or unable to get to school, and cost the country billions of dollars in new government spending. Sounds like a surefire way to sink an already faltering economy!

[Todderbob]

I’d like to point out, that despite the fact I did take drivers ed in Ohio, due to the fact I moved around a lot I didn’t get my license until I was 18 in North Carolina. They never made me so much as say “Yeah, I know how to drive.” I could’ve, easily, cheated on the “What does this sign mean, what does that sign mean?” (You’ll know what I mean if you’ve taken an NC License test) And the multiple choice thing was piss-easy.

All in all, I could be an 18 year old idiot who’s never driven so much as a golf cart, walked into that DMV and gotten my license. So long as I could drive 400 yards without hitting anything, know how to operate the vehicles lights, blinkers, etc and do a 3 point turn without any of my wheels falling of the pavement.

[casdave]

Since it will probably be pretty tough to pay for millions of new police officers to cover every square inch of road in the US,

Fallacy of the excluded middle.

Greater enforcement does not mean this at all, unless you want it to mean this.

Like anything that society chooses, there is a cost, and there is a balance to be made. The balance here is the depressing number of road deaths in the US, vs mobility.

Is the current situation acceptable, or do the figures have to double, or triple? or what would you find to be an acceptable number of deaths and serious injuries?

Perhaps nothing should be done, just allow the carnage to continue.

Reality is that every developed nation has a more stringent set of rules to driver training, and almost every such nation has lower accident rates in any way you wish to measure it.

Training is not the whole answer, enforcement and punishment are also important, just becuase you need to drive does nto give a driver the right to behave in an appalling manner on the roads, and a spell of being marooned without wheels might allow errant drivers some time to reflect.

You can approach this from the utility view, or you can look at it from the view of the victims, past and future.

Why not have a more stringent set of standards for trainnee drivers, and why not have a set of stringent set of standards for driver instructor training, ours are very highly regulated, our instructors must pass a test at regular intervals.

I am not advocating learners being stuck at home without the means to travel, I advocate that learners actually learn to drive and demonstrate that they are capable of this, and from what has been posted here, there is a gulf of a differance between the US and pretty much most other developed nations.

[catsix]

casdave said:
Fallacy of the excluded middle.

Greater enforcement does not mean this at all, unless you want it to mean this.

It was featherlou who wanted to make sure that every single time you go out for a drive you encounter some sort of traffic enforcement – either a red light camera or a traffic cop. What kind of saturation of cops per mile of road is necessary to accomplish that?

Like anything that society chooses, there is a cost, and there is a balance to be made. The balance here is the depressing number of road deaths in the US, vs mobility.

Is the current situation acceptable, or do the figures have to double, or triple? or what would you find to be an acceptable number of deaths and serious injuries?

I probably would not bat an eye at 100,000 a year. I might not even get worked up at 500,000 a year.

Reality is that every developed nation has a more stringent set of rules to driver training, and almost every such nation has lower accident rates in any way you wish to measure it.

Cite?

And do include the figures for miles driven.

You can approach this from the utility view, or you can look at it from the view of the victims, past and future.

I don’t get emotionally worked up over the number of people who die in car accidents. Even if I did, it would be a bad reason to make laws.

I am not advocating learners being stuck at home without the means to travel, I advocate that learners actually learn to drive and demonstrate that they are capable of this, and from what has been posted here, there is a gulf of a differance between the US and pretty much most other developed nations.

What has been posted here is a bunch of anecdotes and a few statistics chosen for their shock value.

[Cat_Whisperer]

@Shagnasty

I would love it if every driver in North America were as experienced and tested as well as an airline pilot but that is not realistic. I could understand these types of comments coming from people in Europe but not in Canada. You can literally lose your entire life by not having a driver’s license in the U.S. I live in the greater Boston area which has one of the better mass transit systems in the U.S. but we have none, absolutely, none of that where I live within even 10+miles. If I lost my driver’s license, it would literally mean that I would lose my job, my 1st grade daughter would have too be pulled out of her great school, and much, much worse. I would simply have to continue driving because even tens of thousands of dollars in penalties or even a few nights in jail would be extremely mild compared to the alternatives. I started driving by myself to run errands at 14 due to extreme family circumstances and I got my full license on my 15th birthday. There was literally no other choice for us and tons of people that don’t live in a city proper have to deal with the same thing.

Then I guess you better make damn sure you’re an excellent driver and don’t lose your license. While you’re at it, cross your fingers and hope everyone around you is an excellent driver, too, and they don’t cripple you permanently* so you can’t support your family any longer. Good luck with that - the odds really aren’t in your favour, since drivers aren’t forced to be competent. In Alberta, the odds are 1 in 30 that you’ll be involved in a collision. I suspect your odds are similar. And if you’re rural, your odds of being killed instead of just injured are greater than if you’re urban.

*That’s the reality of serious car collisions - the lucky ones die. The unlucky ones spend the rest of their lives in a wheelchair or in constant pain or without the limbs they were born with.

Yeah, I’m well aware that my opinions on this subject are extreme. What I don’t really get is why everyone isn’t as alarmed at the carnage on our roads as I am. If Chinese products killed 400 Albertans every year, we’d be marching on Ottawa to ban every Chinese product from Canada. It’s just traffic deaths, though, so we shrug and drive off, blabbing on the cell phone.

[casdave]

Quote:
Reality is that every developed nation has a more stringent set of rules to driver training, and almost every such nation has lower accident rates in any way you wish to measure it.

Cite?

And do include the figures for miles driven.

Just read the links I have provided, you will find national accident comparisons in terms of per capita and miles driven, you will also find, on the wiki link, the requirments for driving licences by nation, and I also included on that give this information by US state.

This is GD, and I know better than to make a statement without being able to back it up, the only thing left is for those links to be followed.

I see you have a more sanguine view of US road casualties than perhaps most of you fellows, but that is your choice.

I don’t have dog in this fight, each nation decides what it will tolerate, and the reasons why.

I would be interested to understand why some US states have accident rates that are comparable with the lowest in the world, and others are comparable with the worst, why should this be? Maybe someone can explain, is it driver training, enforcement, huge differance in driving conditions, differant age profile?

[Critical1]

@catsix

I probably would not bat an eye at 100,000 a year. I might not even get worked up at 500,000 a year.

wow thats pretty impressive, if we hit 500,000 road deaths a year I would stop driving period, that or buy a bus. I dont know if you are getting this or not but you do realize that every single crappy driver on the road means you are more likely to die or face injuries right? and your entire family right? all your friends are at higher risk from each and every bad driver on the road.
regarding the extra costs

you are leaving out the fact that we spend billions in this country every singe year paying for crappy drivers to be on the road, insurance costs, taxes that go to injured people health care, there are a ton of costs that come with crappy drivers. preventing the collision in the first place will cost one hell of a lot less than fixing the damage after the fact.

[catsix]

featherlou said:
In Alberta, the odds are 1 in 30 that you’ll be involved in a collision.

This 1 in 30 that at some point you’ll be in a collision with another car? That’s really not so bad, considering that a collision is pretty much anything that results in a report to the insurance company. Minor fender benders that result in no injuries to anyone are collisions.

*That’s the reality of serious car collisions - the lucky ones die. The unlucky ones spend the rest of their lives in a wheelchair or in constant pain or without the limbs they were born with.

Considering the safety features in cars today, there are accidents that rip cars apart so badly that it’s hard to tell what kind of car it used to be, and the occupants may have only minor injuries. Where did you get this ‘reality’? Did you make it up on the spot?

Yeah, I’m well aware that my opinions on this subject are extreme. What I don’t really get is why everyone isn’t as alarmed at the carnage on our roads as I am.

Because there’s really no reason to be alarmed. Driving a car is and always has been dangerous. Safety equipment has actually made things better and worse. People are more protected now because of air bags and such, but the knowledge that the airbag is there kind of increases the daredevil streak. If you had a steak knife pointing out of the center of the steering wheel, people would probably drive really carefully.

If Chinese products killed 400 Albertans every year, we’d be marching on Ottawa to ban every Chinese product from Canada. It’s just traffic deaths, though, so we shrug and drive off, blabbing on the cell phone.

Because we accept that driving has an inherent level of danger to it. If you’re talking about Chinese fireworks killing people who have accidents with those because they were careless, then I probably wouldn’t get too worked up if 400 Albertans died. I wouldn’t get too worked up if 400 Pennsylvanians died.

Critical1 said:
wow thats pretty impressive, if we hit 500,000 road deaths a year I would stop driving period, that or buy a bus. I dont know if you are getting this or not but you do realize that every single crappy driver on the road means you are more likely to die or face injuries right? and your entire family right? all your friends are at higher risk from each and every bad driver on the road.

I realize this. I know that every maniac out there who drives drunk, speeds, texts while driving, or otherwise acts like a moron behind the wheel increases the danger. I accept that. I’m OK with it. I know the same is true of my family, my friends, everyone I love.

I don’t understand why this is supposed to make me fearful. My family, friends and I all do a lot of things that are dangerous. It’s part of life.

you are leaving out the fact that we spend billions in this country every singe year paying for crappy drivers to be on the road, insurance costs, taxes that go to injured people health care, there are a ton of costs that come with crappy drivers. preventing the collision in the first place will cost one hell of a lot less than fixing the damage after the fact.

Prove it.

[Shagnasty]

It isn’t easy to compare road deaths among countries or even among states for that matter. Boston has a well deserved reputation for being the worst major driving city in the U.S. but the death toll in Boston proper isn’t that bad. The reason is that it is hard to go fast enough in the city to generate a lot of carnage. Even though the road design is poor, the drivers follow their own wims, and hardly anything else makes any sense, the death toll is relatively small. I guess you could call that a safety “feature”. OTOH, the interstate highway system allows vast numbers of cars to travel at high speeds and accidents can be deadly even if the driver just nods off. Likewise, rural roads require their own skills that driver education never seems to focus on. They usually have no lights and poor signage that can confuse even an experienced driver who is unfamiliar with that particular road especially under poor conditions. All of the friends that I have known that were killed in car accidents were on rural roads when it happened.

[Critical1]

Traffic collision

from the page posted
“In the United States the calculable costs of motor-vehicle crashes are wage and productivity losses, medical expenses, motor vehicle damage, employers’ uninsured costs, and administrative expenses. (See the definitions for a description of what is included in each component.) The costs of all these items for each death (not each fatal crash), injury (not each injury crash), and property damage crash was: Average Economic Cost per Death, Injury, or Crash, 2006: Nonfatal; Disabling Injury; $55,000; Property Damage Crash (including nondisabling injuries) $8,200; Death; $1,210,000; Expressed on a per death basis, the cost of all motor vehicle crashes—i.e. fatal, nonfatal injury, and property damage—was $5,800,000. This includes the cost of one death, 197 property damage crashes (including minor injuries, 54 nonfatal disabling injuries). This average may be used to estimate the motor vehicle crash costs for a state provided that there are at least 10 deaths and only one or two occurred in each fatal crash. If fewer than 10 deaths, estimate the costs of deaths, nonfatal disabling injuries, and property damage crashes separately.”

these figures are pretty much in line with the ones I am using in class.

http://www.unitedjustice.com/death-statistics.html there is a pdf on the page I linked.

how could you possibly even doubt the idea? never mind having seen your general tone in the thread I can believe it.

[Cisco]

@catsix

Are you?

If you’re going to make that a qualification for having an opinion in this thread, let’s see your credentials.

@Odesio

Telling you? Check again, bucko, because I asked some pertinent questions.

Instead of giving me a nonsense answer to pertinent questions maybe you could simply answer them. I won’t even ask if you’re a driving instructor or a traffic cop.

Odesio

Sorry for the late response. I’ve had a tough couple days and didn’t feel like arguing.

Basically, I don’t think you guys understood what I said. Odesio was saying “what could I possibly learn from a course?” and I was just saying that unless you’ve dedicated your life or your career to knowing all the rules and safety procedures of the road (like a traffic cop or a driving instructor has), then you probably don’t know them. Ergo, you’re telling us you don’t know what you don’t know. And no, I am not a traffic cop or a driving instructor, and I don’t claim to know all the rules of the road - - I said as much in the OP, did you not read it?

And catsix, regarding some of your posts in this thread - do you not understand that money is valueless if you’re not alive to spend it?

[catsix]

Cisco said:
And catsix, regarding some of your posts in this thread - do you not understand that money is valueless if you’re not alive to spend it?

Most of us, with a little luck, will die long before we run out of money. The only question I have is what I’m going to spend money on while I’m alive.

The argument that I would be dead and therefore unable to spend the X$ that traffic school would cost implies that I would take that X$ and stick it in the bank and not spend it on something else before I die. It’s flawed, because for all you know, I already spent it.

I don’t think there’s anything at traffic school that I could learn that would be worth the time and money it would take to go to traffic school. If I did, I’d go out and buy some lessons. Nothing is preventing me from doing so right now, if I feel that’s a good use of my time and money, right?