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The interwebs are in a tizzy today over a 62-year-old driving instructor who allegedly served up wine to two female teenage students and then continued the class. Teen drivers are scary enough. The idea of drunk teenage drivers is enough to keep me off the road until I can afford a tank. And body armor. But the story of Frederick Bindner is making more and more sense to me.
I mean, let's be honest. It's nuts on the surface. Apparently Binder had all three teenage girls taking the class at his driving school at an Olive Garden, where he allegedly offered the booze to all three. Two girls, ages 14 and 16, took the drink. A third claims she tee-totalled (but Binder then threatened to withhold her certificate for completing the course, so she spilled the whole story to her dad).
You want to know why he gave kids booze? Me too, but FIRST I want to know what the heck they were doing at the Olive Garden. Did I miss the portion of the DMV testing that requires you know how to eat your way through the Tour of Italy? To be fair, I don't hail from Iowa like Bindner and these kids, but I've been licensed in two states thus far, and neither one asked me a thing about soup, salad, and breadsticks before they slapped my terrifying mug on a piece of plastic.
And let me tell you, my high school driver's ed instructor had no interest in seeing how I performed after a couple of brewskies. The dude had it hard enough keeping himself in the car with three kids who'd each crashed a vehicle at some point and that one guy who was always trying to hold my hand in the backseat. It's no wonder he chewed tobacco and spit out the door constantly. He needed something to keep his mind off how close he was coming every day to leave his wife and daughter behind forever.
See, it's thinking back to dear old Mr. F. that makes me get this guy in Iowa. He may be a classic perv trying to get some sweet young things tipsy, or maybe he was just on the train to crazy town already and this was his breaking point? He's not nuts so much as ... frazzled?
Frederick Bindner is one of the few Americans who willingly gets into a moving vehicle with a teenager at the wheel. That alone means the guy's a little cuckoo-cachoo, right? Maybe we should be counting our lucky stars that all he did was give some kids wine; that level of stress could make you do some REALLY crazy stuff!
This guy was totally wrong, but aren't all these driving instructors a little bit "different" for taking that kind of risk every day? Could you teach teen drivers day in and day out?
Image via teamstickergiant/Flickr
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