18 for adulthood. 21 is too old for some things, like only being allowed to go clubbing and drink at age 21? People that go to university straight out of high school would be almost graduated/in their final year of a three year degree by the time they get to 21. Half the fun of university is doing dumb shit while legally high or drunk from what I've heard. On the other side 16 is too young for some things. I don't want 16 year olds to have full on driver's licences or get married lol. So 18 is a good middle ground.
South Africa might just be the one country more car brained than the US, but even here you can only get your learners permit at 17, and a proper licence at 18, after a full on test in a manual car. (If you do the test in an automatic, your licence is restricted to auto only). Motorbike learners licenses start at 16 though. Sure these can all easily be bribed, but still. At least the laws exist.
Farms and tractors is different, since there's a lot of private land and a low population density, you get literal kids driving pickup trucks, dirt bikes and farm equipment lol. Sometimes they even drive into town to pick up stuff. Knew someone in middle/high school that almost went to jail because they were driving on the highway near the farm and got caught.
Bribery definitely causes a lot of problems though. Obviously it seems cool to get the police to fuck off if you get pulled over for a bs reason (em, "profiling"), but it's really screwed up the transportation industry. See the minibus taxi mafia nonsense, no public transport, etc. Also leads to cops soliciting bribes, like they pull you over and don't want to ticket you, they just want a bribe. Weather it's cash, fast food or fizzy drinks. I've seen all three work as a bribe before. Hell even gas station pies can work, SA cops have no standards lol.
I've tried to use more American friendly vocabulary here to make it easier to understand, before someone calls me a fake South African for using words like pickup truck and middle school.
Pickup trucks are called Bakkies (lots of words from other languages like Afrikaans, Zulu, Xhosa, Tswana, etc make it into our everyday English vocabulary), yes traffic lights are called robots, the elevator is a lift, and middle school doesn't exist. You get primary school (grades 1-7) and high school (grades 8-12). In primary school you have the junior phase (1-3) and the senior phase (4-7). In high school the junior phase is grades 8 and 9, and 10-12 is the senior phase. In grade 10 you get to pick your own subjects and stuff.
I've actually never watched the Colour of Friendship lol. From what I understand it's a story about a white girl from apartheid South Africa living with a black family in the US? Is that right?
Also edited my previous comment to add a bit about bribery.
18 for adulthood. 21 is too old for some things, like only being allowed to go clubbing and drink at age 21? People that go to university straight out of high school would be almost graduated/in their final year of a three year degree by the time they get to 21. Half the fun of university is doing dumb shit while legally high or drunk from what I've heard. On the other side 16 is too young for some things. I don't want 16 year olds to have full on driver's licences or get married lol. So 18 is a good middle ground.
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South Africa might just be the one country more car brained than the US, but even here you can only get your learners permit at 17, and a proper licence at 18, after a full on test in a manual car. (If you do the test in an automatic, your licence is restricted to auto only). Motorbike learners licenses start at 16 though. Sure these can all easily be bribed, but still. At least the laws exist.
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Farms and tractors is different, since there's a lot of private land and a low population density, you get literal kids driving pickup trucks, dirt bikes and farm equipment lol. Sometimes they even drive into town to pick up stuff. Knew someone in middle/high school that almost went to jail because they were driving on the highway near the farm and got caught.
Bribery definitely causes a lot of problems though. Obviously it seems cool to get the police to fuck off if you get pulled over for a bs reason (em, "profiling"), but it's really screwed up the transportation industry. See the minibus taxi mafia nonsense, no public transport, etc. Also leads to cops soliciting bribes, like they pull you over and don't want to ticket you, they just want a bribe. Weather it's cash, fast food or fizzy drinks. I've seen all three work as a bribe before. Hell even gas station pies can work, SA cops have no standards lol.
I've tried to use more American friendly vocabulary here to make it easier to understand, before someone calls me a fake South African for using words like pickup truck and middle school.
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Pickup trucks are called Bakkies (lots of words from other languages like Afrikaans, Zulu, Xhosa, Tswana, etc make it into our everyday English vocabulary), yes traffic lights are called robots, the elevator is a lift, and middle school doesn't exist. You get primary school (grades 1-7) and high school (grades 8-12). In primary school you have the junior phase (1-3) and the senior phase (4-7). In high school the junior phase is grades 8 and 9, and 10-12 is the senior phase. In grade 10 you get to pick your own subjects and stuff.
I've actually never watched the Colour of Friendship lol. From what I understand it's a story about a white girl from apartheid South Africa living with a black family in the US? Is that right?
Also edited my previous comment to add a bit about bribery.
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I got my learner's permit at 15 which is just insane to me now