Three articles caught my attention last week: the octogenarian who hit a pedestrian in Birkir­kara, the PN/PD parliamentary motion calling for 16-year-olds to be allowed to vote in general elections, and Saviour Balzan’s plea that they be spared from doing so.

All over the world, ‘coming of age’ is a clearly defined rite of passage endowing the individual with rights and responsibili­ties. But there’s no corresponding cut-off in advanced age. Some societies revere their elders, while in many, reaching ‘pensionable age’ is a golden moment. Forget Shakespeare’s ‘second childishness’ and that bit about ‘sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything’.

Which is why in most parts of the world you can vote at 18 and can continue doing so pretty much until the day you die, even if you don’t really know what you’re voting for.

At the risk of treating a highly sensitive subject insensitively, I was reminded of this absurdity during the divorce referendum, when an elderly lady, barely conscious, was dragged to a polling booth and ordered by her son to remember to put a cross in the No box.

And while I don’t really see an easy way out of this sort of thing happening, when you consider that people in Malta spend their adult lives voting (whether they like it or not, or even understand it), I don’t agree with reducing the threshold and starting them off at 16.

Yes I know: age is a social construct and there isn’t much difference between 18 and 16. But a line has to be drawn, and for various reasons our society has always chosen 18. So I really don’t see why politicians are suddenly clamouring to change that. I could just as easily argue that 16 is closer to 14…

I speak here as the mother of a refreshingly straightforward 16-year-old who is far more interested in catching Pokemon, playing Zombie games and watching Manchester United than following a debate on television. His political inclinations (if indeed they exist) are not rooted in any profound personal conviction but arise from what he has ‘learned’ or picked up from family or friends.

I am, of course, aware that there are adults who actually vote this way and remain politically unsophisticated and malleable all their lives. Just as I am aware that some 16-year-olds are extremely focused and possess unusually strong politi­cal and non-political views.

If 16-year-olds can vote, it’s hello to other rites of passage: entitlement to drive a car and buy property

Yet, much as I’d like to, I can’t go all the way with Marlene Farrugia’s ‘vote of confidence in Maltese and Gozitan youth’. It’s a good sound bite, but I question its universal wisdom.

Yes, perhaps at 16 you can work (and pay tax), marry (not advised) and vote in a council election. And yes, it’s part of the passage – the ongoing learning curve. But why not let youth be ‘young’ for just two more years? Why this sudden urge to force youth into full adulthood? Is it, one wonders, to create a new constituency to vote your way? That smacks of political desperation.

Personally, I’m more comfortable with 16- to 17-year-olds being spared family coercion and the blandishments of political parties. And I’d like to keep the lid on other issues too.

Because if 16-year-olds can vote, it’s hello to other rites of passage: entitlement to drive a car and buy property. Now while property might not present a problem in our booming economy, more cars certainly would. Traffic is one of Malta’s most blighting issues – we need to get cars off our roads, not onto them.

Which brings me to the driver’s seat and another rite of passage which does not seem ever to expire. It is not unusual to hear of very senior drivers still in possession of a driver’s licence.

These days it would be politically incorrect to discriminate against the independent elderly – and rightly so. But the unvarnished truth is that while some people are physically or psychologically unfit to drive at any age (yet do), others are safe well into their 80s. Our world is full of exceptions, and also of exceptionally fit people who are more balanced than many half their age.

But when I heard that an 82-year-old had knocked down a pedestrian last week, I found myself wondering whether age had anything to do with the accident. I certainly have no wish to rush to judgement, let alone point the finger at older drivers, but I do think the time has come to have senior drivers submit to comprehensive medical checks.

My impression is that, here in Malta, you can keep on driving if you keep under your doctor’s radar. Of course, few are willing to surrender their keys and admit to diminished abilities – that’s part of the psychology of ageing.

We are all set in our ways and not given to self-policing. Which, of course, is as much a problem at the ballot box as on the Mrieħel Bypass. You are 16 only once but you’re an adult for a long time. So perhaps politicians should be less concerned with accelerating adulthood and more concerned with empowering people to let go and take a back seat at the appropriate time.

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