Following 14 deaths from texting and driving related accidents in Western Australia last year, popular policy maker and geologist Colin Barnett has proposed a new state policy to capture and kill dangerous teenagers, using baited drum lines in the vicinity of busy intersections.
The decision to specifically target teens followed a recent study that shows teen drivers are 4x more likely than adults to get into car crashes or near-crashes when talking or texting on cell phones.
In a statement issued by the premier’s office, Barnett said “the policy will be implemented, to protect human drivers from the risks associated with driving near an increasingly distracted population of careless young people.”
The policy authorises and funds the deployment of drum lines baited with Splendour In The Grass tickets, designed to catch and kill Skaters, Jocks, Preps, Emos, Mean Girls, Hipsters and Nerds. Any teens found hooked but still alive, and measuring over 3 metres in length, are to be shot and their bodies disposed of at sea.
Australia’s Federal Environment Minister, Greg Hunt has issued the West Australian government with a temporary exemption from national environment laws – that normally protect teenage humans from poaching – to allow the otherwise illegal act of catching people against their will and suspending them from giant metal hooks until they “drown of natural causes”.
Opponents to the policy claim that the baiting and culling of teenagers (particularly the good looking ones, which are a federally protected species) is environmentally irresponsible, ineffective at deterring texting and driving, and borderline-inhumane.
Barnett has dismissed this public opposition as “ludicrous” and “extreme”, and clarified that “killing these punks is not culling them, but is using a targeted, localised, hazard mitigation strategy”.