All those bad drivers? You're not imagining it...

According to a new report by GMAC Insurance, nearly 20% of US drivers would flunk the driver's license test if they had to take it today.

To anyone who's ever driven (well, 80-odd percent of us, anyway), this probably comes as no surprise. All those horrible drivers out there? You're right! They don't deserve to have a license!

I've long wondered why on earth we give out driver's licenses as a rite of passage. I guess the only answer is that parents are willing to make roads collectively unsafe in order to gain some convenience by not having to drive their teenagers around anymore.

Imagine that we've moved beyond cars, and aircraft become the standard for personal transportation. Would we give every teenager a pilot's license, after a pathetically simple test which requires about 2 hours' worth of preparation? No, we wouldn't, because when airplanes crash, they hit things like houses and office buildings. However, since cars can only kill a few people at a time, we accept the risk and entitle our high schoolers to operate these deadly weapons.

It makes no sense... I'm all for the American way of life, and I know how central the automobile has become to our feelings of independence. But for God's sake, shouldn't the test for a driver's license actually measure whether or not one is prepared for the responsibility of operating a vehicle on public roads? A driver's license shouldn't be a rite of passage. It should be a permit issued to those people who've thoroughly demonstrated an ability to safely handle an automobile.