I'm young enough to vividly remember the things I did as a teen-ager, and old enough to realize how stupid some of those things were.

And now, with all the hypocrisy of the most flagrant demagogue in Washington, I am telling my kids not to do those very same things.

The biggie has to do with driving too fast.

Even though my oldest child is still more than four years away from a driver's license, the lectures already have begun.

Speed kills, I tell them.

And unfortunately, in recent weeks there have been a couple of tragic opportunities for me to shove the newspaper in their faces and say, "See! See what can happen if you drive fast?"

The ultimate "I told you so."

It's really too bad it has to be that way. Just this week a 17-year-old girl from North Manchester was critically injured in an accident in Warsaw.

A couple of weeks ago, an 18-year-old girl from Syracuse was killed.

Speed was a factor in both accidents.

Speed. I remember that feeling. That feeling of power the first time you're behind the wheel with nobody else in the car. "Let's see what this thing will do! Yeehaaa!"

I remember driving way too fast. I was lucky. I never crashed.

The irony is that when you're first learning to drive, it is the absolute worst time to drive fast.

Anytime you're doing something new, it takes a while to get the hang of it. Driving is no different. It takes a while before you're able to accurately assess stopping distances. It takes even longer to know how to control a car in a skid.

Some people never figure out how to pump brakes, although anti-lock braking systems are slowly eliminating the need for that skill.

Also, when you're new at something, you're more prone to making mistakes.

In driving, mistakes are exponentially magnified by speed. A mistake at 35 miles per hour - dropping a tire off the berm, crossing the center line - may mean an accelerated heart rate as you pull the car back into the correct lane.

That same mistake at 70 miles per hour may mean headlines on the front page of your local daily newspaper as you swerve out of control and smash head-on into a tree.

How many times have you read the phrase "lost control" in an accident story?

How many times do you suppose someone "lost control" of a car while driving 40 miles per hour?

I live 14.7 miles from work. My route to work is mainly on county roads. I see teen-agers driving on those roads. Lots of them drive very fast. They whiz by me like I'm standing still.

County roads - narrow and bumpy - are not designed for speeds over 50 miles per hour. The risk of that one mistake rises on those roads. That one bit of inattention is all it takes - changing a station on the radio, putting a cassette tape or CD into its plastic case.

At high speeds, averting your glance from the road for just a couple seconds can be a fatal mistake.

I know that adults drive fast too. And I also know that not all teen-agers drive fast. But in the final analysis, driving fast is just plain stupid.

I know that now. It took me a while to learn it. Hopefully, I can steepen the learning curve for my kids or anybody else who will listen.

In the meantime, all you "cool" kids out there who drive fast can call me uncool, geek, loser, nerd, jerk, square, reject, dolt, tool, choat or whatever the latest hip derogatory word is.

But do me a favor.

Don't make me write any more headlines about you, OK? [[In-content Ad]]