Teenagers and the Driving Law

Dear Journal,

The driving age for teenagers in the state of Virginia should have never changed from an even sixteen years of age to sixteen years and three months. At the age of sixteen, teenagers are perfectly capable of understanding the road and its rules. An extra three months is not going to change anything in the long run. Having to hold your permit for nine months is also ridiculous. All my friends and I were fine getting our driver’s licenses at sixteen why shouldn’t the kids today be bale to do the same? It is not fair for the teenagers today to have different rules of being allowed to drive than those in the past.
At the age of sixteen teenagers are responsible enough to drive. Teenagers can get a worker’s permit at fifteen and the average sixteen year old works at least fifteen hrs of week. So, these teenagers should not be stripped of their privilege of being able to drive at sixteen when it is almost necessary. This helps with parents as well, especially for children with younger siblings, who apparently are responsible enough to help with the siblings and in turn reliable enough to be on the road.
Aside form holding a job teenagers are in school and have that responsibility as well and so being as prepared for driving as they, having to wait three extra months to obtain a driver’s license is just preposterous. What difference is three months really making? There is no way it would make a difference. People just assume teens need to get off the road more and want to postpone it as much as humanly possible without disrupting a large amount of the public’s lives. Three months will make as much difference as having to wait nine months to even try to get your permit.
Every teenager, under the age of eighteen in Virginia, already has to take the driver’s education course, both in the classroom and on the road and if she passes then she is apparently ready to drive. Most teenagers are more prepared for driving than most adults are, who are not required to take any of these courses before obtaining a driver’s license. There should be no other circumstances about how many months to wait to be able to drive. Why should teenagers have to go through so many other things just to be able to get behind the wheel? It is all just a matter of whether or not you have the ability to drive. It shouldn’t be about age and when you do concentrate on age this much then you are guilty of ageism.
The law for the teenage driving age should be changed immediately, so that no other teenagers should have to live their lives differently of it. If a teenager moves to Virginia they may end up waiting up to an extra year just to be able to drive. Teenage driving is not about having fun cruising or anything as adults may perceive, it is just about giving all teenagers, with responsible ones in mind, the privilege of being able to drive to school and hold a decent job if needed. The Virginia driving law is unreasonable; teenagers are people too with goals and are as capable of driving as anyone else.

Things Just Happen

Dear Journal,

Sometimes thing happen and there isn't anything you can do about it. People are going to jump to conclusions or make mistakes no matter what you say. There is always going to be someone who gets on you nerves and there will always be someone to blame you for the conclusions she has jumped to. I have realized all of these things because of what have encountered not only recently, but in my life as a whole, but what I am going to say is the best example I can come up with from my own life that I can remember well.
The instance that occurred in my life that brought up these topics happened at church last Wednesday night. One of the leaders in the church, an older lady, who had gone camping with the youth group, decided she didn't feel that all of the teenagers had treated one of the other teenagers properly. After she elaborated on this, the situation was simply that she didn't think the teenagers "accepted" this other teenager as one of the group. This seemed understandable; except for the fact the teenagers did treat her, the other teenager, as one of the group. Every last member of the youth group, especially the girls, went out of their ways often to help try to please the other girl or try to make her not sad. This seemed to just be one girl who could not leave well enough alone. She cried, screamed, gossiped, and did many other things before and during the campout. Still, the teenagers included her in every game or hike that was participated in. She just wanted constant attention and when this girl did not get it she whined or just exaggerated everything possible until someone responded. Anything that happened to make her feel left out had nothing to do with the other teenagers who were all wrongly accused and lectured for not treating someone fairly when, in reality, they all did.
This goes to show that everyone is going to have something happen to them that will just annoy you to no end. The annoyance in this situation may either be this girl or the church leader who decided to make everyone of the teenage girls do an exercise to learn kindness. This exercise was of something that would normally be done in children's church. I, myself, was accused of saying things to this girl to make her feel bad and I can assure you I am not at fault. I don't know what happened or what was said exactly, but I am almost certain everything conclusion was come to because this leader does not know this girl well at all. She may know her mother, but not the child, herself, because if she did she would not feel the need to treat the other teenagers like 5 year olds. There is a great word called socialization, this is what needs to happen with that child who has been on trip after trip, camping or not, with all these same teenagers for the past year. If she felt bad or left out I don't think she would come time and time again knowing she would d spend weekend in direct social contacts with the other individuals. Everything that occurred was just a big mistake and the leader was out of line for lecturing and accusing the teenagers. Maybe I am out of line for writing all this down, but either way, I feel better and this is all over with. I hope nothing like this has to happen again, because if this leader was worried about the girl leaving the church or something along those lines. I can confidently say that I was probably one of the most left out on this camping trip and after such accusations I, not this girl everyone is worried about, would be the most likely to pull from church social interactions if my family and future family were not so involved. Hopefully, everyone has learned their lesson and me to for talking about this with others afterwards. In conclusion, no matter how good or not good you are things are just going to happen and we are all just going to have to deal as I am with this.