What's the worst thing that might happen?

When I turned 18, my mom and dad gave me permission to "access" some money that they had put away for me, with the help of my grand-parents. Although it didn't amount to much, it was enough for me to buy myself a car that I could use to commute to college.

Back then, it was inconceivable for my mom to allow me to rent an apartment near the school I was going to attend. I was to remain home while studying. This of course would have been fine and dandy, had I attended a college within reasonable driving distance.

I didn't. I would've liked to attend a college that would have been closer but no.

They forced me to attend a college that was a whopping 100km round trip, in horrible traffic as there was no direct route, three different highways had to be used daily, as well as two main (and very busy) bridges. (That is an entry I'll keep for next time I'm feeling particularly angry at my mom.)

As a result, I never actually attended college as much as sporadically show up once in a while.

Incredibly, I managed to maintain a decent average on both semesters I was there, and to pass, but ultimately I grew weary of the commute and quit.

College hours were from 8AM to 6PM Monday to Friday, except on Wednesdays when I had the "luxury" to start class at 11AM. This of course meant that my mom could "use" me for odd jobs around the house until 10AM because "one hour should be plenty to get you to school on time".

Yeah. If I had a jet-pack, or the Bat-mobile, or both.

That amount of traffic meant I had to be out the door on the way to college by 6:30AM, and that I would only make it back for 7:30PM. I remember my mom used to take a fit almost daily, because she thought I was gallivanting away, between 6PM and 7:30PM when I finally made it home, exhausted, only to be yelled at for being "so late". Mercifully we had no cell phones back then.

Now, in retrospect, how unreasonable was it for my parents, my mom mostly, to force me to study out of the family home when she had never been to this college and thereby never "tasted" a daily commute of that magnitude?

Quite a bit. So I quit in the middle of my third semester and went to work.

But I digress.

Back to the car. I enjoy driving on the open road, there's nothing quite as relaxing as a nice drive along the countryside with the soft top down. The problem strikes when I'm confronted with complete idiots who firmly believe that the open road is the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

When I bought that first car of mine, it was a beauty. A 1981 SVO Capri. It had an inline 6 cylinder engine with a turbo and was FAST. I had little experience behind the wheel and even though I purchased the car in January, and drove it through the rest of the winter on SUMMER TYRES mounted on low profile wheels, I failed to wreck it.

Even though it was the first time I had ever driven a manual transmission with a clutch, I failed to wreck it.

Even though most of the time I had it I had barely enough money for gas (given the commute), so tyres and maintenance were spotty. I actually ran out of brakes one morning, they simply didn't work when I needed them. I miraculously managed to pull myself off the traffic without hitting anything and to drive it SLOWLY to a brake shop.

And I drove it hard. Sometimes I drove it like I had stolen it. But myself and my friends had the common sense to know when we were going to far and to pull back way before the moment, where all hell was about to break loose.

We had our limits and knew it. We respected that.

For two years I even managed not to get any tickets which was miraculous, considering some of the stunts I pulled along with some of my friends. I did eventually get an illegal right turn ticket, it happened at 6AM while I was driving my date home from HER prom, she was two years younger than I was.

Later that summer I got a ticket for driving through a yellow light which apparently is only legal if you're driving a cab, or a bus, but not if you look 20 and have a sports-car.

However, I did manage to remain out of trouble and never hit or kill anyone like the youngster did last fall in my neighborhood when he jumped a curb while he was racing a friend, plowed through a cedar fence and buried a three year old that was decorating her baby sitter's backyard for Halloween.

So I wonder, do teenagers today have no limits or do they simply have no common sense?