It doesn't hurt the first day, it hurts the next day after the adrenaline wears off. I got TBoned by who ran a red light because he was texting, he hit me at 35. He never hit the brakes. Funny thing if you believe in karma, is that his air bag shoved the cell phone into his face and knocked him out.

I think this should be mandatory every couple of years or so in order to renew your driver's license.

On the day I applied for my license, I visited my dad at the hospital and the guy next to him had a smashed face from a car accident. He had been in a car with a friend, who was driving, and his teenage girlfriend, who was pregnant. The girlfriend's baby died and it was considered unlikely that the girl would survive. The driver went mostly unharmed and was understandably very upset.

I swore that day to always remind myself of this before I get into a car. I used to, but now I don't. The impression fades.

2) Is very true. I crashed my first car aged about 7 on a friend's farm - old volvo estate, slammed it diagonally into a tree doing about 30, and rolled it down a bank. Terrifying, but a very, very valuable lesson in terms of just how much energy a few tonnes of metal at 30mph carries.

I walked out of it unscathed, but was a kid made of rubber. Dare say these days I'd have smashed ribs and so-forth from the same - at the least.