Insurance companies have capable people calculating risks to measure the premium to be charged. Car drivers under 25 have to pay a higher premium. Given this stark fact, is the state to take on itself higher risks by lowering the age of consent? In a recent book, ex US First Lady Laura Bush opened up about a 1963 car accident that killed a fellow teen.

The New York Times reported in late April that former first lady Laura Bush, writing in a new book, Spoken From the Heart, reveals heart-breaking details about a car accident she caused as a teenager that left another young person dead. Laura Bush also wrote that after the tragedy, “I lost my faith that November, lost it for many, many years”, that morning

“It was the first time that I had prayed to God for something, begged him for something, not the simple childhood wishing on a star but humbly begging for another human life. And it was as if no one heard,” she says, according to the newspaper.

Way back during the 2000 presidential campaign, it was revealed that in 1963 – when the future first lady was 17 – she ran a stop sign and hit another vehicle. The driver of the other car, another 17-year-old named Michael Douglas, was killed. Laura Bush has said little about the tragedy until now. The New York Times said that she wrote of being “wracked by guilt for years after the crash, especially after not attending the funeral and for not reaching out to the parents of the dead teenager.”

Teenagers on the threshold of life could be stunted or devastated in their growth years from incidents resulting from misjudgements by being granted possibilities for which they have not yet reached the maturity levels. Lowering the age of consent will play into the hands of unscrupulous entrepreneurs bent on increasing sales be they of alcohol or two- or four-wheelers, which account for so many deaths.

G. Bonett

Marsalforn