Right MJFan101, and anyone else who's interested in Canadian driving hazards, including youngsters driving.
My Canadian friend, 20 years resident, says Canada has problems of its own with young drivers, particularly in rural areas. It is vast, open and the roads empty, has driving conditions which we never experience here, and has many roads which are gravel roads.Let youngsters loose with a car; and the typical family car is of bigger engine size than ours; on roads which are largely free of traffic, roads which may be gravel and dangerous in good conditions, treacherously so when frozen, and you get lots of fatal accidents.
In rural Ontario,she says that deaths of, or caused by, young drivers are so common in rural areas that she herself could instantly name three friends in her small town whose children have died that way, given time she could certainly recall others, and such cases are so frequent that they pass as hardly worthy of general notice.
She adds that there is 'some rule' which permits passengers in the rear,open, part of pick -up trucks. Young drivers will happily carry friends in the back, none, of course, wih seatbelts. One collision spills them on to the road. And alcohol is often involved in young drivers' accidents, though the consumption is restricted to 19 and purchase to 21, the youngsters still get it somehow.
So she's in favour of the age being raised to 18.