I think it's time to move to Holland. Plus, there they have Amsterdam.

Holland would be the coolest place to wake up with absolutely no recollection of the night before. I mean how cool would that be? Perhaps one day I'll wake up in a fancy hotel room there and have no idea how I got there. And then there will be lots of hot Dutch femmes in clogs looking down on me. But, oh shit.. I can't speak Dutch!

But in regards to driving, apparently there they already do most of this-
E-mail in English from guy in Holland:

From: "jackowacko"
To: humans@humans.com
Subject: Shitty Driving System, I'm Not a Motorcyclist ;-)
Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003

Hello fellow Human-being,

Have you ever been to holland? A lot of the ideas you have seem to already been introduced here. So I thought you might find it intresting, that some countries are doing something about traffic.

#1 Obtaining a license
Here in Holland obtaining a license sucks. Although I'm not quite happy with the hard exams, it sure produces better drivers. (oh btw it costs a hell-a-lot of money, like 500 $) And it is even getting harder this year. You first obtain a temporary license (18 till 21y) and when you get a fine or being pulled over it's gonna earn you points, when you made enough, your license is being taken.

#2 Traffic light timings.
In every major (?) city we have what we call a green wave, when you pass a green traffic light and stick to a certain speed you're sure to catch the next greenlight, this system really works.

#3 Lane thingy
Our trucks are restricted to the first two lanes, on a avarage 4 lane motorway the first is for old people ;-) and trucks, second for slow driving and truck passing. Third personal verhicles driving too and fourth for passing only. As for the 18-wheeler trucks, we don't have those (just a few).

#4 Motorcycles
Still allowed here, problem with motorcyclists is you never know what they'll do next.

#5 Road focus
I guess just like in your country there are fines on that. Just don't know if your cops really live up to it. Here a lot of attention is being spend on handfree calling. There are big fines and the police is very strict on that.

#6 License renewal
From a certain age people have to renew there license every 5 years.

#7 Smaller trucks.
We use alot of what you might call citytrucks. My dad used to be the boss of a industrial supplier and I know we were very sufficient on transport.

#8 Dangerous driving vs. minor speeding
Well guess this sucks here too. There are speeding cameras planted everywhere (and destroyed too), which fines you 80$ for minor speeding 1-10 km/h over limit. While there is less done about drivers really making the traffic dangerous.

#9 Parking problem
Totally agree on that one. Same problem here, althoug we have a lot of one-way streets. Which kills the problem.

#10 Eliminating reckless drivers
No shit :P.

Well this is it.

Jacco


It sounds like Holland's on top of things. However, the U.S. really cannot convert to that age for license obtainment due to lack of widely available mass transportation. And about those speeding cameras it sounds like you have: I hate those things; we have a few of them in some cities here.

-Greg
hi[at]humans.com
Subject= humans.com