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Why 16 Year Old Teenagers Should not drive
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Why 16 year Teenagers should not drive
When I visited, “Zap’s Childhood Memories: Lending Library,” I checked out the book called Fourth Grade and the first page that I flipped to was I reading a fellow student’s view of teenagers and driving:
“I think the law is changing to (that was a common typo) fast. I think the driving age should be changed to fourteen years old.”
At that point, I was thinking that was absolutely wrong. Then I didn’t know anything about the topic, but I already disagreed. Let me explain more. Once I came back with more knowledge, mostly from Insurance Company Databases and a very useful site where most of my data was collected.
Let’s look at why teenagers should drive… Wait, there is no list. You see, your adolescent is not competent enough to drive, just crash. Coincidence? Not. If it was, the risk of vehicle crash for teens would not be four times frequent than adults to crash. The thing is, it’s all about your brain. Scientists concluded that the brain’s rear lobe, the one responsible for reflexes, does not mature until you are twenty-nine years old. This is why teenagers have the 1# spot on the highest driving fatality rates in the U.S.
The teen term, raging hormones, do exist. It encourages risk taking and fun seeking. Adolescents have far more aggressive and reckless behavior than their adult counterparts, and their driving error causes 77% of crashes: like speeding and losing control of their car. They are also known to bring four-people carpools and host “car-parties,” yelling out of the window on the road and sticking hands, feet, and even heads outside of the vehicle, breaking tons of rules doing so. This is not only an annoying nuisance but also a threat to all other drivers on the road. Nor do sixteen-year-olds recognize dangerous situations. Quizzes prove over one fourth of teens during tests do not recognize things adults would. They are also more likely to ignore traffic guidelines and forget seatbelts, only 32% were reported wearing any. Thirty-One percent of drivers age fifteen to twenty who crashed were also reported to drink alcohol. Compare that to a far sparser 4% of more responsible adults. Let’s not forget that they are more likely to have a run in with the police. A massive 56% were reported using cell phones while driving.
Teens also could be doomed to negative driving attributes because of their parents. A poll has proved that the reason fatality is high is not only because of their stupidity but also how their parents drive. Half of them were not aware of the Graduated License Program, and 71% talked on a cell phone while driving. One fourth confessed they ran stop signs. They are sometimes also known to let their teens drive during bad weather or very late hours.
After being told by the student who wrote the paper wanting to lower the age, “You’re trying to take away people’s freedom.” Jacob (that was his name) went on to explain that his older friends took oaths to drive safely and haven’t broken any rules yet nor gotten into any accidents.
However, he probably forgot to mention the general populace doesn’t fit that image. As we could tell in the news and GEICO’S and Allstate’s databases, teens have a very poor concept on driving “safely.” Many didn’t hesitate to go ninety miles per hour or higher if they could. Some of them even speed while drinking (62% confessed that they were involved in drunk driving). Let’s not forget one of the most infamous years in teen driving, the year 2003. Reports have 937 drivers age 16 involved in fatal crashed, and 763 teen drivers and passengers died. That counts as nearly 5 times the rate of deaths compared to more mature drivers. For every dead driver, a hundred other injuries occur, which leads to something close to a twenty times mortality rate if you’re a teen. It’s obvious why insurance companies are annoyed; teen driving costs the United States $19 billion a year. That doesn’t even count the get-well-soon balloons, cakes, and cards.
Currently, state legislature has restricted access to careless road rage as much as they could. This includes laws that patched the most odious problems in teen driving, including restrictions for passengers, limits of what they can do with the license until seventeen. But far too many problems remain, even though the crash rates have slipped just slightly below the very elderly. In this case I propose an outright ban on giving sixteen and seventeen year olds driver’s licenses for the sake of public safety. Those who already have licenses can stay, but from now on, only eighteen years old.
You see, if Jacob was right, we wouldn’t get hit by these hard statistics. Perhaps it was self-motivated by the fact he wanted to drive himself? Just like the president of the school screams, “Recess 24/7! (‘cause I want to play)” We all know that people can be responsible, but they don’t want to be. If sixteen-year-olds couldn’t be capable of driving competently, then how in the world can fourteen year-olds handle it? So fellow parents, don’t be ignorant, don’t vote to lower the driving age, no matter what you teenager begs you to. You don’t want to regret that you didn’t put life insurance on her/him before he/she inevitably gets killed. Right?
When I visited, “Zap’s Childhood Memories: Lending Library,” I checked out the book called Fourth Grade and the first page that I flipped to was I reading a fellow student’s view of teenagers and driving:
“I think the law is changing to (that was a common typo) fast. I think the driving age should be changed to fourteen years old.”
At that point, I was thinking that was absolutely wrong. Then I didn’t know anything about the topic, but I already disagreed. Let me explain more. Once I came back with more knowledge, mostly from Insurance Company Databases and a very useful site where most of my data was collected.
Let’s look at why teenagers should drive… Wait, there is no list. You see, your adolescent is not competent enough to drive, just crash. Coincidence? Not. If it was, the risk of vehicle crash for teens would not be four times frequent than adults to crash. The thing is, it’s all about your brain. Scientists concluded that the brain’s rear lobe, the one responsible for reflexes, does not mature until you are twenty-nine years old. This is why teenagers have the 1# spot on the highest driving fatality rates in the U.S.
The teen term, raging hormones, do exist. It encourages risk taking and fun seeking. Adolescents have far more aggressive and reckless behavior than their adult counterparts, and their driving error causes 77% of crashes: like speeding and losing control of their car. They are also known to bring four-people carpools and host “car-parties,” yelling out of the window on the road and sticking hands, feet, and even heads outside of the vehicle, breaking tons of rules doing so. This is not only an annoying nuisance but also a threat to all other drivers on the road. Nor do sixteen-year-olds recognize dangerous situations. Quizzes prove over one fourth of teens during tests do not recognize things adults would. They are also more likely to ignore traffic guidelines and forget seatbelts, only 32% were reported wearing any. Thirty-One percent of drivers age fifteen to twenty who crashed were also reported to drink alcohol. Compare that to a far sparser 4% of more responsible adults. Let’s not forget that they are more likely to have a run in with the police. A massive 56% were reported using cell phones while driving.
Teens also could be doomed to negative driving attributes because of their parents. A poll has proved that the reason fatality is high is not only because of their stupidity but also how their parents drive. Half of them were not aware of the Graduated License Program, and 71% talked on a cell phone while driving. One fourth confessed they ran stop signs. They are sometimes also known to let their teens drive during bad weather or very late hours.
After being told by the student who wrote the paper wanting to lower the age, “You’re trying to take away people’s freedom.” Jacob (that was his name) went on to explain that his older friends took oaths to drive safely and haven’t broken any rules yet nor gotten into any accidents.
However, he probably forgot to mention the general populace doesn’t fit that image. As we could tell in the news and GEICO’S and Allstate’s databases, teens have a very poor concept on driving “safely.” Many didn’t hesitate to go ninety miles per hour or higher if they could. Some of them even speed while drinking (62% confessed that they were involved in drunk driving). Let’s not forget one of the most infamous years in teen driving, the year 2003. Reports have 937 drivers age 16 involved in fatal crashed, and 763 teen drivers and passengers died. That counts as nearly 5 times the rate of deaths compared to more mature drivers. For every dead driver, a hundred other injuries occur, which leads to something close to a twenty times mortality rate if you’re a teen. It’s obvious why insurance companies are annoyed; teen driving costs the United States $19 billion a year. That doesn’t even count the get-well-soon balloons, cakes, and cards.
Currently, state legislature has restricted access to careless road rage as much as they could. This includes laws that patched the most odious problems in teen driving, including restrictions for passengers, limits of what they can do with the license until seventeen. But far too many problems remain, even though the crash rates have slipped just slightly below the very elderly. In this case I propose an outright ban on giving sixteen and seventeen year olds driver’s licenses for the sake of public safety. Those who already have licenses can stay, but from now on, only eighteen years old.
You see, if Jacob was right, we wouldn’t get hit by these hard statistics. Perhaps it was self-motivated by the fact he wanted to drive himself? Just like the president of the school screams, “Recess 24/7! (‘cause I want to play)” We all know that people can be responsible, but they don’t want to be. If sixteen-year-olds couldn’t be capable of driving competently, then how in the world can fourteen year-olds handle it? So fellow parents, don’t be ignorant, don’t vote to lower the driving age, no matter what you teenager begs you to. You don’t want to regret that you didn’t put life insurance on her/him before he/she inevitably gets killed. Right?
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Reply 1
...or maybe it's just why irresponsible idiots of any age should not drive?
Reply 2
WarmEye
OP
17
stupid teens.
Reply 3
I'm 17 and passed my driving test 2 months ago and haven't had any crashes or bumps or scrapes or anything of that nature but then by the same token I know several other people my age who have passed and very quickly wrote off their cars - one of them 36 hours after passing his test - so I can see both sides of the argument.
I think it is definitely a ridiculous idea to let people who are 14 years old start learning to drive for all the reasons you just went over. There is no way they are sensible enough and mature enough to be able to drive in a safe and responsible manner. However I think that where the driving age is placed shouldn't necesarily be at 18 years of age.
The age that you are allowed to drive should tie in with the age at which other things become legal so I don't think it would make sense to tell someone here in Scotland for example that when they are 16 they are allowed to move out, get a job, get married and have sex and therefore children but they aren't allowed to drive to their wedding or drive to work or drive their children to school. If they are seen to be old enough and mature enough to do all that then surely they are at an age that they should be seen to be sensible enough to be allowed to drive. Furthermore there are some people I know that definitely are mature enough to be allowed to drive before they are 18 so it seems unfair that they should be disadvantaged by some people who aren't mature enough. Also I think that for those people who aren't mature enough to drive at 17 there is nothing to say that they are going to be mature enough at 18, I think to a large extent if you want to get the majority of people over that barrier so that they are responsible enough you are waiting until they are 21 years old and by that point you really are restricting people's freedom to what seems to be a silly level.
So I would agree that driving at the age of 14 is a daft idea but I don't think moving the driving age to 18 is a sensible idea either unless it was decided that absolutely all restrictions such as gambling, sex, drink and what-not were to be moved to the one age of 18.
I think it is definitely a ridiculous idea to let people who are 14 years old start learning to drive for all the reasons you just went over. There is no way they are sensible enough and mature enough to be able to drive in a safe and responsible manner. However I think that where the driving age is placed shouldn't necesarily be at 18 years of age.
The age that you are allowed to drive should tie in with the age at which other things become legal so I don't think it would make sense to tell someone here in Scotland for example that when they are 16 they are allowed to move out, get a job, get married and have sex and therefore children but they aren't allowed to drive to their wedding or drive to work or drive their children to school. If they are seen to be old enough and mature enough to do all that then surely they are at an age that they should be seen to be sensible enough to be allowed to drive. Furthermore there are some people I know that definitely are mature enough to be allowed to drive before they are 18 so it seems unfair that they should be disadvantaged by some people who aren't mature enough. Also I think that for those people who aren't mature enough to drive at 17 there is nothing to say that they are going to be mature enough at 18, I think to a large extent if you want to get the majority of people over that barrier so that they are responsible enough you are waiting until they are 21 years old and by that point you really are restricting people's freedom to what seems to be a silly level.
So I would agree that driving at the age of 14 is a daft idea but I don't think moving the driving age to 18 is a sensible idea either unless it was decided that absolutely all restrictions such as gambling, sex, drink and what-not were to be moved to the one age of 18.
Reply 4
Learning to drive at an earlier age might work in a country like New Zealand, where the roads are basically empty, but I think it would be a really bad idea in the UK, which according to police has one of the most complicated road networks in the Western world (because of the number of types of carriageway, frequent speed changes, settlement density and number of other drivers). I'm sure some 16 year olds are mature enough to drive safely, but I think its better to stick to 17.
Reply 5
15
I agree with drivin age limits, and I agree with insurance companies when they don't want to insure teenagers; we are a bunch of raging maniacs when it comes to driving...
I'm 17 and I've had a 49cc motorbike since I was 14... I guess I should defend 14 year olds with bikes, as I was one a few years ago... but I don't; we drive too fast, overtake everyone, never wear our helmets (I do, but no one else seems to), etc etc... we are too dangerous.
Cars are dangerous things; a couple of tones of metal full of gasoline and traveling at 100 miles/hour... It doesn't surprise me that car licences exist; and I think that licences should be harder to get. I think that cars should be a privilage; only a few people should be able to get their hands on one; not the other way around. That way we would also decrece petrol consumption and enviromental pollution.
People are petrified of plane crashes and terrorism, when the main cause of death in our society are car accidents. People spend their time complaining and fearing insignificant issues, when they can't even be bothered to put their seatbelt on.
I'm 17 and I've had a 49cc motorbike since I was 14... I guess I should defend 14 year olds with bikes, as I was one a few years ago... but I don't; we drive too fast, overtake everyone, never wear our helmets (I do, but no one else seems to), etc etc... we are too dangerous.
Cars are dangerous things; a couple of tones of metal full of gasoline and traveling at 100 miles/hour... It doesn't surprise me that car licences exist; and I think that licences should be harder to get. I think that cars should be a privilage; only a few people should be able to get their hands on one; not the other way around. That way we would also decrece petrol consumption and enviromental pollution.
People are petrified of plane crashes and terrorism, when the main cause of death in our society are car accidents. People spend their time complaining and fearing insignificant issues, when they can't even be bothered to put their seatbelt on.
Reply 6
Joanna May
...or maybe it's just why irresponsible idiots of any age should not drive?
Ditto.
Reply 7
The later in life the driving age, the better. I didn't think so when I was younger (then, again who does?), but the older I get the more dangerous I realize young drivers are. Scary.
Reply 8
15
I still think 17 is too young. 18 is much more reasonable. Idiots will always be idiots, but I think enough people will grow out of it between 17 and 18 to make it reasonable. I think young people should be encouraged to use mopeds etc where the damage they can do is largely limited to themselves rather then metal chariots traveling at insane speeds and more importantly - capable of hurting a lot of people around themselves.
Reply 9
i don't think it matters, the people who do burnouts at halfords will continue to do so until their mid to late 20's, these are the same people who drive at excessive speeds. Whether the limit was 16 or 25 they would still act like idiots, more sensible people will drive more sensibly no matter what their age, however 16 is too young, plus it encourages people to focus on employment rather than school at a crucial time.
I don't like the way insurace companies set the prices so high, i think it should start low, then the second you have a crash it should go through the roof. Maybe some sort of contract to keep you with that company so they can regain their money. This would financially scare many people into driving safely.
I don't like the way insurace companies set the prices so high, i think it should start low, then the second you have a crash it should go through the roof. Maybe some sort of contract to keep you with that company so they can regain their money. This would financially scare many people into driving safely.
Reply 10
I didn't start taking lessons until I was 19 because I just didn't feel ready to be let loose on the roads at that age. I feel that as a new driver at my age I'm safer than had I been a new driver at the age of 17. Especially as at 17, I would have been more cocky and more concerned about showing off than mine/my passengers/other roads users's safety which is paramount to me now.
Reply 11
I can think of 4 people my age who have already writen off cars. One ended up in hospital. One has already had 3 crashes with in a short period of time. There is no doubt that teens make much worse drives, but I am wondering if it is just down to a lack of experience rather than acting imature. Our parents are far less likely to crash than we are, but they have up to 30 years of experince behind the wheel. If the driving age was rasied to 25 (which is not very fesable) then surely those 25 year olds would not have much better of a record than todays 17 year olds, as far as safe driving goes.
Reply 12
It is illegal for anyone under 18 to be employed in working with all categories of heavy machinery (try getting a job on a production line, and you'll quickly find out).
A teenage driver is responsible for as many vulnerable lives as someone working with heavy machinery; a driver is under less supervision; a driver is operating in an environment with many more distractions.
Are we right to stop teenagers working with heavy machinery, because of increased risks?
If so, will the same factors producing these risks not make teenagers even less suited to driving on public roads? If so, are the gains in convenience worth the increased risk of loss of life? Should the driving age be raised to 18?
A teenage driver is responsible for as many vulnerable lives as someone working with heavy machinery; a driver is under less supervision; a driver is operating in an environment with many more distractions.
Are we right to stop teenagers working with heavy machinery, because of increased risks?
If so, will the same factors producing these risks not make teenagers even less suited to driving on public roads? If so, are the gains in convenience worth the increased risk of loss of life? Should the driving age be raised to 18?
Reply 13
My major gripe with the article is it uses statistics that show 16 year olds make worse drivers than 26 year olds and makes the assumption this is based on biology and never mentions the more intuitive reasoning that it it might be the case that a decades extra driving experience might be the culprit. If that's the case then raising the driving age will just make the new minimum age group as bad as the last because of less experience.
My other gripe is that I feel you should not say x group should not do an activity because it does not do it as well at it as y group. I think you should point to a standard and say anyone under this standard fails. Just because men crash more than woman does not mean men should not be allowed to drive.
However, if you say that over x amount of accidents per x amount of the people who drive in an age range would render it justifiable for the right to be revoked then I would not gripe about it too much. But merely saying x group is worse than y group so x group should be banned can have disastrous consequences when followed to it's logical conclusion and has had disastrous consequences in the past when it was used to deny women and black people so many rights.
Edit: I just want to point out that I'm not taken a firm stance either way about under 21's driving ability, I just dislike the reasoning used in the first post.
Jaded
My other gripe is that I feel you should not say x group should not do an activity because it does not do it as well at it as y group. I think you should point to a standard and say anyone under this standard fails. Just because men crash more than woman does not mean men should not be allowed to drive.
However, if you say that over x amount of accidents per x amount of the people who drive in an age range would render it justifiable for the right to be revoked then I would not gripe about it too much. But merely saying x group is worse than y group so x group should be banned can have disastrous consequences when followed to it's logical conclusion and has had disastrous consequences in the past when it was used to deny women and black people so many rights.
Edit: I just want to point out that I'm not taken a firm stance either way about under 21's driving ability, I just dislike the reasoning used in the first post.
Jaded
Reply 14
I think that statistically this article is correct but in the long term we have to think about changing the standards because I believe its unfair that car insurance companies put you in a high paying bracket until your 25 just because a few of the group decide to drink and drive..
Reply 15
It's ridiculous to think of a 14 year old driving. Scary, even. 16 year old is less scary but still i don't agree with it at all. I think the age should be increased to 18, I know that when I was learning to drive at 17 (didn't get licence til 19) some people i knew the same age got their licences, one example was someone who'd been joyriding since the age of 14, and the other everyone was amazed he passed, he was a lunatic on the roads. However they both matured over that year, they've calmed down a bit more now, but i don't think either of them should have passed the first time.
Reply 16
Dam teens and thier makeout parties and rockem sockem robots
Reply 17
Its a valid point. But maybe low powered cars are the answer. Ideally no more than 70 bhp.
Reply 18
irresponsible people come at all ages believe it or not but whilst there are mature 16 year olds out there, i would say the majority of them are not mature yet and would only drive in an arrogant manner. tbh if 16 year olds cant drive then neither should 18 year olds, the two year gap hardly make a difference.
Reply 19
12
Yeah I don't think people my age 16/17 are responsible enough to drive safely.
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