People don't want to talk about it nor believe it. But movies like Fast and the Furious and Gone In 60 Seconds, it's no wonder one of the most populated, busiest cities in the world has the worst drivers.

Let's take Manhattan for example, ever try catching a yellow cab on Broadway? Sometimes I feel you need a radar detector just to slow them down. Cab drivers drive against a running meter. When sitting in a cab, you almost feel like your on a NASCAR track qualifying for pole position, while the meter is running tallying your fare. As long as people can get to destinations quickly, New York City will continue to flourish and make money from fast cab drivers. They get priority parking on every city block, and don't get tickets for speeding or running red lights. If they do it rarely happens. Besides the cabs, you've got the messenger carriers on bicycles that weave in an out of traffic going to their next destination. I get scared every time I have to cross a busy intersection that doesn't have a solid red light.

In Nassau County in 2005, there were 1,333,137 people living there. Only 23.8% of those people were under 18 years old. From the remainder how many of those people do you think might have driver's licenses? A lot in my book. Kids that have cars in Nassau County are part of these VW (Volkswagen) clubs. Ever since Fast and Furious, with the remarkable race at the end with the Eclipse versus a Dodge Charger, there has been a craze for racing. At Riverhead raceway during the summer they have shootout races. A popular one is the Ford versus Chevy Shootout. But most kids on the weekends drive out to shopping malls after hours, and race on strips for hours on end. Groups of kids get together prior at a friends' house with their car to tweak their cars prior to the race. Changing to racing tires,lowering suspensions, changing gear ratios on their 5-speed 4 cylinder engines. What makes this the worst is that these races are video taped and upload on You Tube. Just do a random search for VW and see what pops up.

Maybe New York should consider raising the driving age to 21. Why not? If they can change the smoking age from 18 to 19 years old. I don't think there should be a problem in doing so.

In Nassau County facts provided by: http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/36/36059.htm l

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