Kyleigh's Law: Mandatory Decals for Young Drivers

No worries on the delay :) RD 3 order. Profiling: 1. Profiling is still a wash, which my opponent doesn't bother to address. At the point where, decal or no decal, we have profiling, my opponent can't use it as an offensive reason to oppose the decal. He also can't warrant that profiling will increase enough to even notice a difference in enforcement. Any claim to that effect is hyperbolic. Decals & Defensive Driving/Safety Precautions: 1. I had to laugh at his total misquotation of my RD 1 statement. Here's what I actually said: "Though it is stereotypical, to a certain extent, to claim that all youth drivers are inherently worse than adult drivers (as we've all seen our fair share of terrible adult drivers), the statistics on the matter prove that youth drivers are more likely to commit driving errors than those of older demographics. " Notice that my opponent quotes only a clause of my entire sentence, and leaves out the part where I prove definitively that young drivers present the nation with a safety hazard that the state feels compelled to address based on empirical warrants. 2. Why not put decals on old people's cars? I don't have a problem with that, as long as there is demographically accurate research to back it up. On Permits Being Removable: 1. Aw crud. The source must not have pasted properly. My apologies. However, that is a direct quotation from the text of the law: . http://www.njleg.state.nj.us... Interestingly enough, this isn't the link I used initially. However, this version, published by the NJ legislature, has been amended to read "hang tags" rather than decals. Not only is the law written to allow transferable permits, but the legislature is making them hang tags. Though this actually changes the nature of the debate by totally nullifying anything my opponent says about profiling (since he says in RD 2 that hang tags are less conspicuous), please don't count this as an offensive argument. I maintain that the original information, which discusses the decal being removable, is enough for me to win the argument. Plus, I don't want to introduce a new argument in the last round. Bottom line: the permit is transferable, and my opponent is plain wrong on that count. Furthermore, what logical sense would it make to create a non-transferable decal? Do teens never switch cars? Sex Predators Cont. : 1. Sexual predators stalking cars around town is just illogical. It's impractical (if we can speak of criminality in terms of practicality for a moment). I've stated this previously. Despite documented behavior patterns for sexual predators, my opponent is under the impression that an orange decal will make all the difference in the world. I call shenanigans. 2. My opponent isn't able to argue against the fact that the permits are removable. Without even considering the fact that they are going to be hang tags, at the point where they can be taken off of the vehicle when parked, there's no reason to believe that a sexual predator would even have the opportunity to latch onto a victim in such a way. That is a ton of wasted effort, when predators can just hang out in a public park or mall for a few minutes, and have a much easier time of it than following around a car all day. This also assumes that sexual predators, specifically pedophiles, have their sights set on someone who is 16 or 17, which is pretty far fetched. Source Debate: 1. "According to the link you cited (link number 2), there is a chart located on the page"—you said my second source. Hence, there was no way for me to have found this supposed chart in the first place. But, now that I know which one you meant, I went ahead and looked at it. My initial conclusions in RD 2 were right. 2. Again, without a more broken down statistic other than aggregate deaths, you can't mitigate the other evidence I present. Aggregate deaths doesn't really matter at the point where car crashes kill far more teens every year than *any other cause of death. * Furthermore, my sources also detail that teens cause an overwhelming percentage of fatal car crashes (in comparison to adults). I only need to prove that teen driving safety is a serious enough concern to warrant safety measures, not that more of them aggregately die than adults. 3. I already covered old people earlier. When their law comes up, I'll be in support of that one, too. 4. My opponent went ahead and dropped what I said about the federal government's concern with teen driving safety, as well as an extension of the source that he, apparently, didn't actually challenge. That's critical, as it proves that teen drivers are a specific concern of the state on a massive level. This isn't an arbitrary law. Old vs. Young Drivers/Blame: 1. This argument relies on the validity of my opponent's profiling argument. I've already addressed profiling as flawed and unwarranted. 2. Decals have nothing to do with blame. They are simply one of many safety measures imposed by the state on a higher risk group of drivers. Decals Don't Stop Kids From Hitting Trees/Education: 1. Correct. Decals aren't magical safety shields that would stop the force of a tree. However, since we are all about throwing new arguments into this last round, apparently, I'll respond thusly: with the decal on the teen's vehicle, and the teen knowing that more people, including police officers, will be watching said vehicle when they see the decal, the teen will most likely be coerced into driving better than they would if they were more anonymous. This is the same principle that applies to most drivers when they see a cop approaching them or anywhere near them on the road. Presence is enough to enforce. 2. Again, I agree that education may be the most effective way to solve this issue (despite the fact that my opponent failed to bring it up in RDs 1 or 2). In the meantime, though, safety precautions are not a bad thing, and he can't prove that they are. We don't stop ourselves from implementing a plan because it has drawbacks. Every plan has drawbacks. This plan has far more benefits than harms. Dropped/Non-Topical Arguments: 1. I read your statement of topic. However, that doesn't invalidate my 4th counter-argument about the court system. Allow me to quote my opponent: RD 1: "Not only will the police be looking for these decals to pull these young drivers for an easy citation *(which will go through)* but sexual predators can as well. " Here, he makes the court system a key part of his profiling advocacy, since he states that not only will profiling result in more tickets issued, but more "guilty" verdicts since he doesn't believe that judges will dismiss or discharge them. I referred to what he said in RD 1, and clarified again in RD 2. My opponent needs to be held accountable for what he says in round. 2. The counter-plan (involving striking a different clause from the law and keeping the decals) is still, no matter how many times my opponent repeats the same non-argument, a part of this debate. As stated in RD 2, if the goal of the debate is to create, even if just in this round on this website, a more just law, then I'm still operating within his framework. My opponent frames the debate in terms of justice achieved for teens, and then ignores the only argument in the round that *actually* manages to achieve a net benefit in justice for teens (i. e. protecting their due process rights). We are both still debating decals, but we've also been debating about justice since the beginning of the debate. In summation, given that my opponent cannot achieve any justice for the teen drivers of NJ, ignores a Pro plan to do so as "non-topical," and cannot win the cost/benefit analysis with regards to the decal clause, I urge a vote in favor of Pro.