(no subject)

[merchimerch]

This is not a good week for my family. I got a call last night at 2 AM from my mom. My little brother was in a car accident, he was driving and had 2 friends in the car. Thankfully, no one was badly hurt. He entered a curve going too fast, flipped the car 2.5 times. Thank God that he and his friends were wearing seat belts. His friends were able to get out of the car with only cuts on their hands from broken glass and my bro had a bloody, but relatively minor cut to the head. He was flown by helicopter to the hospital in Pittsburgh (2 hrs from my folks' house) and apparently they weren't allowed to disclose his condition to my parents, so my mom rode the 2 hours to Pittsburgh convinced that she was losing her son. My poor mom - this week has seen the announcement of the closure of my dad's organization in 2006 (and thus the loss of his job) and a major car crash for her son. I wish I was there to hug them all. This makes being so far away even harder.

My lil bro got his license about a month ago. I can't help wondering why we let 16 year olds drive unsupervised. As far as I know, no other country has such a low liscensing age. I'm guessing that we need it because public transport is so dismal in the US, and having kids drive (and get in accidents) is profitable for car companies, oil companies, insurance brokers, the health care industry, etc. I've just heard so many times that under 25 year old males are the riskiest group to insure because they are in so many accidents. In England (and UZ for that matter), you can't get a license until 18, and even then the tests are so hard and expensive that you don't have as many young drivers on the road. I know if there was a bill proposed to up the age to 18 in the US that there would be a big stink raised about losing personal liberties (no matter how many liberties we've already lost in the last 2 decades), but I just can't help thinking that it would be better to keep kids on the road supervised until they are older.

Comments

[iyindo.livejournal.com]

I read this last night but I didn't have time to comment as I was on my way out. I'm so sorry to hear about all of the negative news. I'm glad that your brother ad his friends are all right. Nevertheless, that's really scary and I can understand your wishing you could blip home for just a bit to give everyone hugs and make sure everything's okay. I was also sorry to hear about your dad's work. What does he plan to do? Can he retire? Are there any other options for him in terms of transferring somewhere.

much love and hugs... i hope things swing towards the up and up.

iyindo

[merchimerch.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what my dad is going to do about the job situation - he could retire now, but he is like 5 years away from getting a pension at the current job and if he retires before then he would be setting up for a retirement at a much lower living standard than he and my mom have grown accustomed to. They've talked about moving to whatever state my lil bro ends up going to college in to establish residency - we'll see.