How irresponsible and reckless of the guy! Surely the kid isnt at fault here. I mean he is still a minor and cannot be truely held resposible here as he was drunk. no doubt because of the father therefor the kids judgement will have been impared surely? What a disgrace!

Just thanks Jebus no one was hurt!

Poor lad :(

... they weren't both killed!

Their gene pool obviously needs a good dose of chlorine.

The kid can't be held responsible because he's a kid under direct supervision of a parent.

Claiming that someone can't be held responsible if they are drunk is an obiously stupid idea, all too popular with the chavs around here.

If you're gonna get busted for driving while pissed, do it in style.

So all chavs are alcoholics and drunk drivers now?

Hey I have an idea lets imprison all the working classes and unemployed, that way we can start blaming the middle classes for all the wrong doing in the country!

Idiot!

between this and the guy earlier in the week (using a shotgun as a tyre iron) it looks like people are warming up for the darwin awards announcements due soon-ish

"Hey I have an idea lets imprison all the working classes and unemployed, that way we can start blaming the middle classes for all the wrong doing in the country!"

So all working class people and unemployed are chavs now?

Nope, too late.

... does this happen ! the kid wouldn't have been able to drive had the car been a shift gear... automatic rhymes a lot with danger seems to me. look at lohan/ritchie/hilton. they don't have the brains to work a shift gear while theý are shit faced (excuse my french). of course, we wouldn't have the pleasure of reading about these incarcerations were not all cars automatic... haha!

Well, many of us could hold our booze better when we were younger than we can now. The guy was obviously just taking this idea a bit further.

Ahem. Son! Get my coat.

Oh, wait a minute.

The type of people that have their intoxicated thirteen year old drive here are the same type of people who take pride in teaching their thirteen year old how to drive a manual while sloshed.

Are there any countries out there willing to accept an American emigrant? A country where at least half the population is smarter than a twat.

"So all chavs are alcoholics and drunk drivers now?"

Actually, no, that's not what he said. He did NOT say that ot that they're alcoholics and drunk drivers. What he said is that they like to think they can't be held responsible for their actions if they're drunk. And he didn't say ALL chavs -- he said the notion is popular with chavs. Just as saying that George W was popular with the American people (enough to get elected, anyway), doesn't mean that everyone in the US voted for him.

Pull your head out of your arse for 8 seconds and maybe the diarrhea of the tastebuds that you're so clearly afflicted by will clear up for you.

Is this aimed only at Americans?

Quote "they don't have the brains to work a shift gear while theý are shit faced (excuse my french)".

I can drive perfectly while shit faced.... My wife will testify to that as I can get

the car into the drive no matter how much I've had to drink.

Proved by the fact that she crashed my car while totally sober, while trying to

enter our driveway

That said, I would never condone drink driving

I have a clean licence thanks to the incompetance of the police trying to

do me for drink driving a few years ago.

Don't tell anyone but they didn't bother to turn up at court and for some reason

their evidence was (missing/faulty/suspect/un-admissible)

Judge threw threw it out straight away

Can you explain your tie-in with American and manual vs. automatic transmissions?

You seem to be saying that Americans favor auto's but while they may favor them, the ratio here is almost 60-40. (i.e. there are nearly as many manual transmissions as autos based on the number of new and used vehicles currently on the road)

I for one learned to drive on a 5 speed and now drive a 6 speed, only my pimp car is auto (mostly so the girl can drive when I'm pissed). Besides, if I was 13 (no matter my state of drunkenness) and my Dad told me to drive, I'd have been all about it, whether I could drive manual or not. I'd just be excited about the prospect of driving at that age. I'd defiantly have given it a go.

There's no way that kid should be in trouble. If he's been drinking at 13 his Dad is most likely the guy responsible for encouraging that behavior. His Dad needs help and the kid needs love from someone with at least a semi-normal outlook on life. I would have hated being drunk at that age - I was still "high on life" and would have thought it disgusting that people were making themselves feel that way (drunk). That has changed that for me now though - I'm a classic example drinking to compensate for stupid personal decisions (working it IT mostly).

"I can drive perfectly while shit faced.... My wife will testify to that as I can get

the car into the drive no matter how much I've had to drink."

The fact that you know this makes me want to invent a device which would make it possible to punch people in the face via the internet. Everyone's a safe driver, even while drunk, until they have an accident. It's only a matter of time until they wreck, possibly injuring or killing themselves or someone else.

"Proved by the fact that she crashed my car while totally sober, while trying to

enter our driveway."

Because of course, your wife being a crap driver, by default makes you a good one...

"That said, I would never condone drink driving"

If you do it, your condone it by default.

"I have a clean licence thanks to the incompetance of the police trying to

do me for drink driving a few years ago."

I have dead friends thanks to the irresponsibility of people like you that think they're still safe when drunk behind the wheel of a car, based solely on having not gotten into a wreck yet. Not having wrecked yet doesn't mean you're a safe drunk driver -- it means the odds haven't bitten you in the arse yet.

People who drive drunk should be shot. I'd rather bury them than my friends, who did nothing to deserve getting decapitated by the bumper of a drunk driver's truck.

Well said Micahel, well said.

[stands up to applaud]

I second that motion.

/stands *Applause*

i'm 19 (.au legal drinking age 18) and i've never been drunk. Ever.

Quite frankly i don't much see the point.

All drunk drivers are tossers and should get 10 years --> life in jail.

"i'm 19 (.au legal drinking age 18) and i've never been drunk. Ever.

Quite frankly i don't much see the point."

As with most things if you've never done it you probably won't see the point. I, on the other hand, have been drunk a few times so I feel pretty qualified to say there isn't much point.

Just like there isn't much point in playing videogames or sports, going to a movie or a concert, skydiving, base jumping or any of the millions of other things people do for entertainment.

Driving when you're drunk is comepletely different because at that point you are endangering others.

Given that my family lost three cars to one drink driver who also managed to embed glass into a friend's eye that will be there for the rest of his life, I concur.

Drink driving isn't dangerous due to your ability or inability to steer accurrately, it's because you have to react to situations you have not anticipated and make informed decisions in next to no time. I recommend trying to find a copy of Alexei Sayle's "Drive" as a good indicator of what makes a safe driver. The ability to deal with attacking lobsters appears to be one of the required qualities.

Er, no, you can 't. you just think you can. You dribbling spacktard.

My mother was of the same opinion, until she nearly killed me by 'not seeing' a rather wide, open corner at 60mph.

I drove her back home.

At 14.

Drink drivers should have their reproductive organs removed surgically.

[Yes, I realise the logic loop induced by this...]

Francis "Chainsaw" Grimp: [F]act: you know why so many drunk drivers get in wrecks? Because they don't learn how to drive drunk. [from movie Summer School]

Love that quote but still as these people say its very bad and wrong <points finger and agrees with mob>

Only a total arrogant ass would say such a thing like that.

This no doubt happens all over the country.

Try posting without being drunk!

Something similar happened here in Saudi, where alcohol is prohibited completely, several years ago. A British collegue of mine went to an embassy party, where alcohol was served. When leaving he realized he was too drunk to drive, and asked his girlfriend, who was less drunk, to drive.

Unfortunately, women are not allowed to drive here in the first place, let alone when 'less drunk', so they were promptly arreseted.

Tow days later he was put on a plane out of the country and told not to return...

shurely he'd have been even worse off if he'd kept it on the pavement? pedestrian alert!

[I know, I know, American pavement means road]

Unfortunately, women are not allowed to drive here in the first place, let alone when 'less drunk', so they were promptly arrested.

I hope one day, the countries on the Arabian peninsula will adapt to modernity ... never loose hope! It is such a shame for this area, that for so long was the avant-garde of technology and civilization ...

As most likely the only Brit around here who doesn't get drunk on a weekly basis, I believe you have the right to get drunk if you want, as long as you don't drive in that state!

That the Saudis sent him home because he was drunk and had a lady drive is ridiculous, obviously! If the lady was drunk, driving, then Ok, her fault. Then again, who gets drunk away from home in Saudi Arabia, yeah right! Again the old adage: "What would they do if stupidity was painful?"

...or give them and their offspring alcoholic beverages before asking for alift home

"So all chavs are alcoholics and drunk drivers now?"

Yes! :) don't forget druggies, lay-abouts, chain-smokers, dole-scum, and perhaps their worst habit of all...... alive!

I hate chav's (local term, scallies)... they are scum and need to be irradicated... i believe we should start with my brother-in-law.... an out-of-work alcholic father of two who smokes in the car with the kids... then we will move onto my sister.....

Irradicated??

Is that like some weird hybrid of irradiated and eradicated? Or perhaps eradication *BY$ irradiation??

alright, not only in america then... i take that back (only partially though)... my point was that if you put an average 13 year old in a manual car, he is certainly going to have more difficulty (especially if he's drunk) getting it started and going and out of first gear, than if you put him in an automatic..

and because there seems to be very many automatics in the US as compared with Europe (i know 1 person who has an automatic and i've lived in Europe most of my life), it seems only logical to deduct that this scenario is more probable and more likely to happen in the US than in Europe.

and i just want to add that i second (or third) Michael's comment. right on mate!

pretty much.... a slow nuclear death! :) Only the best...

In my defence, I was in the middle of programming at the time and when I do, I tend to just mash the keyboard and let the debugger sort it out! :)