They are not being hugely irresponsible, they know i am responsible and they actually know how i am, unlike you, you think im an idiot who will go speeding round gibraltar which there isnt much point because roads here are sh!t, you got to realise that stuff here in Gibraltar are different to the UK, we do not have never ending roads, here in Gibraltar its like a scalectrix track, you just go round and round the same route all the time, and you cant speed coz of traffic aswell....you need to realise that the UK isnt the world, fair enough you live there and it is rather big, but look at America, Dubai and some parts of Spain, people getting R32's at the age of 16 in america, a guy in la linea i know is 19 and has a V6, its not being irresponsible, its being able to afford it, and enjoying it!
No matter who you are or where you live giving your child a performance vehicle as their first car is irresponsible!!! Filling it full of powerful sound system is then just plain stupidity!
When someone passes their test all they have is a bit of paper that means they can drive a car on the road, they don't know how to drive that is something you never stop learning and only experience can teach it. That's not an opinion, that's a fact!
No matter how responsilbe etc... you think you are a performance car is dangerous because it allows you to go round a corner 50% quicker than you would in a standard 1.1. I'm not talking about balls out 10/10ths driving just at normal speeds you will naturally go down a road quicker because your car corners much faster etc...
To danger comes from the fact that when you come round a corner and there's something in the road your doing 45mph in a 172 whereas you'd be doing 35mph in a 1.2 Fiesta. You havn't been doing anything wrong, you've not been pushing the car anywhere near it's limits but because of what the car is you are suddenly in a situation you've never been in before and you jump on the brakes, lose the backend and crash.
Someone with 10 years experience will come round the corner see the obstacle, look for a safe exit point, apply the right balance of braking/throttle and steer around the obstacle.
This isn't targetted at you specifically this is a generalisation. Ask every person with 5 years + driving experience and I bet they will say something similar. When I was 17 I thought I was a driving God, I now know I'm a competent, fast driver but it's taken me 8 years a couple of crashes and some very close calls to get there and if I'd been given a 172 when I passed my test I'd probably be dead now so I should thank my parents for putting me in a 1.1 (I still crashed it)!!!!!
