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Develops relevant ideas about the topic. Integrates information from sources:
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It’s 11.30pm and you’re exhausted. You finished your shift at the supermarket half an hour ago and have crawled home to bed. As you drift off to sleep, the silence is shattered by roaring exhausts, screeching tyres, and booming car stereos. There is no question in your mind about whether boy racers should be banned from the road, or even something more permanent. Boy racers should be banned because they are irresponsible and dangerous. The danger they pose to themselves and to the community is clear from the number of serious accidents that young drivers are involved in. For instance in a documentary called ‘Point of Impact’, a young Chinese student was killed when she was run down and killed by a boy racer travelling at over 160 kilometres per hour in a 50 kmh area. Killing an innocent person was bad enough, but what was worse was that the driver involved tried to hide what he had done by pretending that the car had been stolen. Anyone who behaves in this way cannot expect to be allowed to use the road. On the other hand, an interest in cars does not necessarily go hand in hand with irresponsible behaviour on the road. This was illustrated in an article in The Press about young people who work hard and enjoy spending their money on developing their cars to a high standard rather than wrecking them. They drive responsibly and sensibly because they are keen to look after their cars. There is no reason that young people cannot have an interest in cars. New legislation will make a change to boy racers’ behaviour. Prime Minister John Key says boy racer behaviour is irritating and dangerous and he wants their cars off New Zealand’s roads. Bans on cruising the streets have been introduced this year, as well as tough laws where three offences like burnouts and skids over four years mean that the boy racer’s car is heading to the crusher. I think these sorts of strong actions by the government will finally get the dangerous boy racers off the road, but leave the majority of young drivers unaffected. It’s important to realise that not every young driver could be described as a boy racer. Most young people drive responsibly because they depend on having a driver’s licence and a car. It would be better to ban those boy racers who really can only be described as dangerous drivers. The majority of young people in cars do not deserve that description and therefore should be treated as responsible road users. |
Uses language features. Appropriate vocabulary choices made. Range of syntax used. Text conventions used accurately. Uses an appropriate style, including connectives to develop points. |
Published on: 27 Nov 2010
