Driving at 16 - really? Is a 16 year- old minor truly capable of grasping the indefinite scope of actions and reactions as an active traffic participant? I doubt it. In my country you have to be 18 to get a driver's license, and even that age I consider as too immature at times looking at our horrific national accident stats. We are obligated to attend a minimum number of courses both theoretical and practical, and believe me, acquiring a license in Austria does cost you an arm and a leg at around 1500 Euro which equals 1800 US Dollar. That is a complete rip- off and nothing to promote, for sure. However, in this country, there is absolutely no sense of appreciation whatsoever when it comes to getting your licence as you only pay about one hundred dollar for administration services. Furthermore schooling here is an option but not mandatory. Sure you have to sit through a four- hour class of so- called overall schooling before taking the driving or road test, but this is doubtlessly beyond any comparison. After my one- year valid international licence had expired, I went online and studied all variations of possible answers within a multiple choice program. Before I went down to DMV (Department of Motor Vehicle) here, I had most certainly taken the online trial tests as I did not want to make a fool out of myself. I passed with flying colors and went on to that pseudo schooling class. You should have seen that bunch of girls and guys there that day! This was truly the epitome of ignorance paired with juvenile stupidity and absolute I- give- a- f...- mentality. I really felt sorry for that woman trying to teach that indifferent and disrespectful crowd. I was the only one sympathetically responding at all! No clue at all when certain traffic situations were laid out for us. Once in a while some hooded head would slightly turn towards me as I was talking about how schooling worked in Austria, and how difficult, expensive and thus highly appreciated it was to obtain the pink slip after an ordeal of months. Here nobody really seems to care a bit about possibly losing their licences, but back home we do care, and as a consequence drunk driving is still comparably small of an issue. Anyway, I finished that morning class, and a few months later I was scheduled for the actual road test. I passed although the examiner had deliberately steered me into stupid traps instead of focusing on realistic scenarios. Thousands and thousands of under- aged kids get in too powerful vehicles and end up getting killed due to an obvious lack of technical and practical knowledge as well as inexperience. And exactly this could be easily changed by better and more profound obligatory schooling, higher fees and a minimum age of at least 18 if not 21. Just reflect upon this: You are allowed to drive at 16 but need to be 21 to legally reach your drinking age. You are not of age until 21, but you are supposed to take full responsibility at 16 once you get your licence. You cannot vote until the age of 21, whereas you may drive a car, cause a deadly accident and go to jail. The equation here clearly fails, don't you think so?
Buy small and local Hi everybody! - Coming from a tiny country like Austria, one might assume that globalisation is just a phenomenon tailored for larger nations, but no, it has also been affecting us all across Europe. Globalisation itself is of complex nature, and even though I'm not planning to write about globalisation per se today, it somehow dictates our overall shopping behavior by bringing in more and more big box chain stores worldwide which sets the general trend for methodically and eventually putting local small family- run as well as individualists' shops out of business. In the 70ies I remember mom and dad taking us along to a wide range of stores from the baker to the butcher, the grocer's, the florist, the hard ware place, the electrician, the tobacco store, etc. What great memories our weekly trips to the market created for us. There we would hand- pick fresh fruit, produce, and other delicacies. Sometimes we would even get a piece of fruit or a carrot fo...
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