I used to be 15 years, 9 months here in Maryland, but they just modified the licensing process to be something akin to the Quebecois system. A six month learner's permit available at 16 and a mandatory driving course (paid for by the driver, naturally).

While, in theory, this is a nice idea, they pull out all the pretty color charts in support of it showing a decrease in accidents, but I look at anything the state mandates me to pay for as either taxation or extortion.

Plus, you'll never convince me of anything's effectiveness on a purely correlative chart. Not when they want to shout to the rafters that they're seeing results in the first years of a program when the number of drivers who came up under it are outnumbered by experienced drivers who got their license the old way some 10,000 to 1...

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The last time I felt a warm fuzzy feeling, I was informed by my doctor that it was just gas.