It's really amazing we grew up, in the "unsafe" world we grew up in, in the old days... A High school girl, just took out my mail box at work...

[Magnum Man]

I got sick of replacing it, over the years, with the high school, just down the street, & this open area drifts between our buildings, out onto the street... I think the plows think they need to get a run at the drift, but they knock my mailbox off, at least once per year... at least until I put a treated 6X6 cemented into the ground, & had my fabricator buddy custom build me a mailbox, out of welded 1/8 inch steel... it had been good the last 2 years... but yesterday it succumbed to a 17 year old girl late from lunch. going back to school... I'm honestly surprised it didn't set off her air bags... it did cost her 2 flat tires though, and even though she attempted to hit and run, she was only able to make it another half block, and was forced to call her dad, who came and told me...

this is the treated 6X6 afterwards... this is on a city street, in a 30 mph zone... curious how fast she was really going???

 

[WhistlingBadger]

Wow! I'd say even with two flat tires and a wrathful dad, she got off easy. Hat's off to dad for fessing up and hopefully making her take responsibility.

 

[GaryE]

How dare you put a mailbox in her way. Or something like that.

 

[Magnum Man]

The kids took her dads car back to school, while he waited to fill out a police report... & she got out the rest of that day, to learn what's involved in changing tires... apparently both tires were bad enough, they had to buy new ones... guessing she learned more outside of school that day, than she would have in school...

 

[GaryE]

We once had a boy in our school who arrived in his rich Dad's very expensive brand new SUV. He managed to total it before lunch, before he had left the school parking lot. He hit the cement base of a light pole at speed. We didn't have cameras on it, but it was a wonder how he managed that.
It was a small lot, and even with the acceleration you'd expect, it was a feat of incoming genius.

The principal decided not to add detentions for skipping the end of class, since he totaled the car 5 minutes before the bell...

 

[Ed Pursell]

Grew up and graduated in the 70’s.. Imagine that in my time, Dad’s vehicle, using it for school, coming back from lunch?? Ya right… I guess I’m getting too old! Is this the way it is now? I bought my own car, my own insurance, never on Dad’s time, I can tell you that.. That would be the day Pop would let me drive his car… Had to take my driver’s test with my Grandpa's car after driver ed class in school.. Any body remember driver ed in school??
Ed

 

[GaryE]

I was in a city school with no driver ed. We were a BMW crowd = bus, metro and walking.

Some of the wealthy kids had cars, but I knew no one my age who drove without borrowing a car til I was probably 18.

 

[anewbie]

I got to drive an old fury 3 to school; sadly i never had an accident as it would have been interesting in that tank.

 

[Colin_T]

This is why kids shouldn't be allowed to drive cars until they are at least 18 and preferably 21. They are 10ft tall and bullet proof. Add young stupid and inexperienced and you have dangerous drivers on the road who don't know how to drive, have poor vehicle control, and who will rush from A to B to make sure they can see their friends before class starts.

Knowing the basic road rules and being able to go, stop and indicate is not knowing how to drive. It takes a few years of being on the road to even start to know what is happening around you. Hopefully the young lady learns from her mistake and becomes a better motorist for it.

As for the mail box, make a brick and concrete one that is reinforced with 2 tons of steel. The next motorist that hits it will know they hit something because their car will stop dead in its tracks.