Show them how it's meant to be New York!

I note in today's Stabroek News that the teenager who performed exceptionally well at High School and was rewarded with a car by his parents had the book thrown at him up in NY where the family had migrated.
A brief recap of the story - the 17yr decided to go driving in Long Island at 3am with three other friend after they had smoked marijuana. As a provisional driver he needed to have another licensed driver in the car with him. Of course a cocksure young male would speed and subsequently lost control of his vehicle at a tricky turn - the three friends died. The papers reported that last Friday he was charged with aggravated vehicular homicide, vehicle manslaughter and driving while impaired with drugs (Ha to Colorado who just passed State Laws allowing personal use quantities of marijuana!) and could face 25yrs in jail-- unlikely to have to serve the full sentence in America's overcrowded jails- AND the parents were both fined a small nominal fine with the possibility of jail-time.

Now I didn't read of any protesting, burning down buildings etc-- the people accepted their penance for their stupidity meekly. Not so in Guyana where it seems the more aggressive you are on the Roadways 'you win'. It is de rigueur for ignorant males ( usually) to be cruising along with a cell phone here on the Streets of Guyana, frequently past a Traffic Cop-- I have heard of instances where people have been charged but it's usually the ones the Police think they can bully - shame the same treatment is not meted out across the Board, in a small country-- it's usually who you know who can get you off the hook.

Ironically in the same papers - very next page in fact-- there was a photo of World Day of Remembrance of road traffic victims. With the Government being proud of the fact that they have no viable Public Transport Policy and that carownership has exploded within the last two years while no planned major improvements on roads designed for limited traffic plus the perception that the general level of intelligence seems to have dropped inversely proportional to aggressive behaviour - as exemplified by the current lot in Parliament on all sides, we are all set for a SERIOUS rise in Traffic Accidents.

It's not like we don't have sensible Laws, simply that they are not enforced and the Courts are a joke - you get the feeling that the mice are in charge, the cats gave up and migrated  leaving just the Fat indolent ones!