If you've got a teenager in the house who isn't tied up, have him sit down and listen, because Uncle Greg has a story that will help the kid in life. Monday night I took a five-hour driving class, a mandatory step before the road test.

Here’s my lesson:

Once you get a driver’s license, you become a trial lawyer’s dream. You hit someone, someone hits you – your whole life is ruined. There are also countless ways to land in jail.

For example, I had no idea a trunk isn’t considered a passenger seat.

Now, since I took a similar course when I was 16, this class revealed to me how age changes your assessment of risks.

When you're young, death seems far away, not around the corner. It’s why you speed and show off. You think you're impervious to dumb ideas like burning rubber, running a stop sign or supporting a socialist.

It's biology. Your brain isn't fully developed. So the many risks that enter your life once you drive at 16 seem nonexistent.

Now, decades later, hearing the same instruction is terrifying. You're older, you have more to lose, your brain has matured – and you understand how arbitrary life is and how far out of your control everything is.

No matter how careful you are, the other guy wielding a two-ton weapon with a gas pedal might not be.

Around the U.S., about 40,000 people die each year in car accidents. That’s a small town every 12 months. With texting teens, distracted adults and stupid drunks it should be higher.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

This is why I love self-driving cars, which can wipe out all fatalities due to human error.

Feel differently? Sit through one driver’s ed class at my age – and you'll never drive again.

Adapted from Greg Gutfeld’s monologue on “The Five” on May 22, 2019.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM GREG GUTFELD