The amount of lives that can be saved by raising the driving age to 18 would be very large. Teens are just not responsible enough to have this responsibility. “ There is evidence to suggest that the part of the brain that assesses risk and controls impulsive behavior is not fully developed until the age 25 (23 for females), providing a physical reason why restrictions such as night curfews and limiting peer passengers is so important”. ( Professor Cass) One of the leading causes of teenage accidents is inexperience. Teenage drivers don’t have the experience of driving a car.
TEENAGE DRIVER LICENSE RESTRICTION: GOOD OR BAD Learning to drive is known as a significant rite to passage which one of the keys to independence. Driving is an activity that involves the greatest risks for a huge number of teens. It also plays an important roles in a peer group, which shows maturity and improves the status of the teen. Teens that can’t drive are seen to be depend on the parents and other peer for mobility and narrows the options for employment. This also influences their social lives and restricts their participation in school and the community activities.
Is 16 Too Young To Drive? The question about increasing the minimum age for a driver’s license has been pushed to the headlines because of the growing amount of car accidents. Whether it would reduce or even prevent accidents of this sort or will simply do no good is the heart of this argument. The reason for wanting to raise the driving age is because it has been proven that teenagers have caused most accidents (Koroknay-Palicz). The argument is a big decision for whether it should be raised or shouldn't it be raised because of the consequences of both sides.
Professor Daube said increasing the drinking age was no “magic bullet” but would help. “Raising the drinking age is something we should consider because it clearly would reduce the problem, it would mean a significant change to our drinking culture,” he said, but conceded it would be “very bloody hard to enforce”. “The harsh reality is that we can decide as a community pretty much how much violence we want.” According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, alcohol is believed to be a factor in about two thirds of assaults. Victims and their families who have shared with news.com.au their stories of being randomly bashed in the street say alcohol is often a common factor. We have also listened to those whose lives have been torn apart by random violence - the mothers, fathers, wives and girlfriends of victims who went for a night out and never came home.
People age differently. There are a lot of people out there who are older then 60, or even 70 that have not lost any vision or hearing and can adapt to today’s driving. It would be unfair to say that every senior citizen is bad at driving, or will be the cause of a car accident, but statistics show that seniors are responsible for much more accidents then their younger counterpart, drivers 75 and older have a 37% higher crash rate then younger drivers (Rosenfield, par 4). This doesn’t mean that every senior will be involved in an accident, but it does show
The drinking age should not be lowered to 18. Lowering the drinking age from 21 years old to 18 years old could lead to an increase in dangerous behavior such as drunken driving and car accidents, risk of developing alcoholism and people under the age of 21 do not fully understand the dangers of alcohol. A teenage driver and alcohol is a dangerous combination. Drinking and driving accidents are the number one cause of death among teenagers. “Traffic deaths from drunken driving have fallen steadily, with those involving teenagers 16 to 19 declining by 39.1 percent from 1982 to 1990, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)”.
It’s a proven success. Nearly every state that has raised the drinking age to 21 has produced a significant drop in the teenage driving fatalities” (Nayaka 193). There has been further evidence that portrays that law since been effective has caused those under the age of 21 to drink less in their youth and less later in their 20’s. Lowering the age also declined the access to of alcohol to minors, thus also not allowing for them to participate in underage drinking (Roleff 86). These laws were in place in order to maintain the protection of the youth and such evidence has shown that these laws are holding true to their original
One can argue that teenagers would gain more experience with time if the driving age were to be increased. “The risk of being involved in a car accident is the highest for drivers aged 16- to 19-year-olds than it is for any other age group. For each mile driven, teen drivers ages 16 to 19 are about four times more likely than other drivers to crash.” (Brown) With these statistics it is interesting that drivers’ education is not made mandatory for new drivers. Teens are known as greater risk takers relative to adults. Another possible issue is that teenagers do not fully understand the rules of the road; some may say teenagers are too young to grasp the consequences of irresponsible driving, or some may feel that the rules do not apply to them.
Another concern in many different communities around the United States is the distracted teen driver, not just the adult. A 2009 report says with the way teens use media the text messaging trend is increasing dramatically, in two years the amount of text messages sent has increased by 566%. A majority of the teens on the road understand the risk of texting while driving, but the eagerness to stay connected is so strong for teenagers and parents the communication becomes more of a concern than safety sometimes. Distracted driving is very dangerous and it includes more than just
Allowing 17-year-olds to take to the road does not run counter to practices in other countries IT is perhaps the busiest and most lucrative time of the year for driving instructors and driving schools. The four-month period until March is when a lot of school leavers go for car driving courses while waiting for the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia results. The driving schools can still count their blessings, as the minimum driving age has remained at 17. This despite calls in the past for an upward revision of it by certain quarters, who believe that these teenagers are too young to drive safely, to 18 or even 21. The clamour heightened in recent weeks following a series of reports on road fatalities and fatal crashes involving motorists in this age group.