Abstinence Only Driver's Education - Humor by Horace J. Digby

With all the dispute over Abstinence Only Sex Education, this might be a bad time to bring up my new idea, Abstinence Only Drivers Education.

But as Wade F. Horn, Assistant Secretary for Children and Families with the Department of Health and Human Services said, "Abstinence is the only 100

percent effective way . . ." I think we should apply this concept to other fields right away.

Critics claim that not teaching kids how to avoid "accidents" will only doom them to repeat the costly mistakes of earlier generations. But isn't that a small price to pay if we can eliminate these so-called "comprehensive" education programs that are actually encouraging our children to drive.

The same thing happens when we teach airline passengers to use those little flotation devices, "in the unlikely event of a water landing." Sooner or later, they (the passengers) will begin experimenting. Wouldn't it be smarter (and I'm almost sure Wade F. Horn will back me on this) if we just taught the pilots not to land on water? That's what Abstinence Only Education is all about.

Some argue that Abstinence Only Education doesn't teach safety. That's silly. What could be safer than not landing on water? Besides, flight attendants have enough to do without teaching passengers how to inflate those little vests.

What people don't realize is that, "It isn't just the water you land on, because when you land on water, you are landing on all of the water that everyone who has landed on that water has landed on before." Now that is the kind of plain talk we like to hear, here at the Horace J. Digby National Committee for Abstinence Only Drivers Education.

Abstinence Only Drivers Education teaches young people to defer their natural curiosity about driving. No one can dispute that teaching our students about seat belts actually promotes their use. With Abstinence Only Education, students won't need to know about such things.

Let's expose the "Myth of Defensive Driving." We may also need to censor a few movies like Herbie the Love Bug, Grease, and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which glamorize cars and car related activities.

Opponents argue that teaching abstinence will simply deny teens the information they need to protect themselves and their driving partners. But that's naive. Teens are constantly exposed to information on television and from their friends, without us teaching it in schools. Besides, how can teens drive if we don't tell them where the keys are?

Once this catches on, we can start working on my other new idea: Abstinence Only Math Education.

-- Horace J. Digby