A new generation of teenage drivers embark on the open road every year. With this new generation of teenage drivers comes a set of skills and responsibilities that the adolescent drivers are going to have to learn. Operating a motor vehicle is a task that requires an immense amount of skill, responsibility, and knowledge, and the process of obtaining a license in Indiana should be more difficult. With more rigorous and time consuming driver’s education courses, harder licensing exams, and a stronger presence of parents in the early months of holding a driver’s license, the number of teen deaths related to motor vehicles would not be as astronomical as it is today.
The rules and regulations today are not as extensive as they should be. At age fifteen, one is eligible to obtain a learner’s permit if enrolled in a driver’s education program. Driver’s education consists of thirty hours of classroom/online lessons and six hours of driving with a professional driving instructor. However, completion of driver’s education is not required to receive a permit. With a learner’s permit, new drivers may only drive with an already licensed driver at least twenty-five years old, a licensed spouse at twenty-one years old, or a certified driving instructor.
At sixteen years of age, a learner’s permit is available to teenagers without enrollment in driver’s education. In order to receive the permit, the teenager must take both a vision exam and a written knowledge test. After the permit is awarded, one must complete fifty hours of driving practice only with a licensed instructor, a licensed driver of at least twenty-five years old or a spouse at least twenty-one years old. Ten out of the fifty practice hours must be completed at night. This en...
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...motor vehicle is a task that requires an immense amount of skill, responsibility, and knowledge, and the process of obtaining a license in Indiana should be more difficult. The current statistics throughout the United States are appalling and would be drastically reduced with these proposed changes.
Works Cited
"Drivers Ed in Indiana." DMV.org. Indiana Department of Motor Vehicles, n.d. Web. 17 Feb. 2014.
Natalie, S.C.. "Texting behind the wheel? Think before you respond." McClatchy - Tribune Business News. 18 Dec. 2013 eLibrary. Web. 27 Feb. 2014.
Sloviter, Vikki. "How Teen Behavior Influences Their Driving: National Young Driver Survey." Pediatrics for Parents. 01 May. 2009: 10. eLibrary. Web. 27 Feb. 2014.
"Teen Drivers: Fact Sheet." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2 Oct. 2012. Web. 15 Feb. 2014.
I. Introduction A. Should 16 year old teenagers be able to drive? B. “Those who favor raising the driving age say that statistics show teenagers are more likely to get into accidents than adults. What they don't say is that statistics also show that men of all ages are 77 percent more likely to kill someone while driving than women.
Statistics show 16- to 17-year-old driver death rates increase with each additional passenger, which is due to distracted driving. Taking your eyes off the road for 2 (two) seconds, at 60 mph, means you have driven blindly for half the length of a football field. The risk of fatality is 3.6 times higher, when they are driving with passengers than when alone. For many years, the correlation between driving behavior and age has interested highway safety researchers and administrators. It is general knowledge that the greatest risk of motor vehicle crash...
Jackson, Nancy Mann. ʺCell Phones and Texting Endanger Teen Drivers.ʺ Teen Driving. Ed. Michele Siuda Jacques. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2013. At Issue. Rpt. from ʺDn't txt n drv: Why You Should Disconnect While Driving.ʺ Current Health Teens (Mar. 2011). Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 14 Nov. 2013.
Also, studies show that the same bad behavior commonly seen in men in their twenties is seen in sixteen and seventeen year olds. Driving is a huge part of a teenager’s social life, too. They need licenses to attend school, work, or social events. So, a way to keep the driving age at sixteen and have better driving on the road is to have a graduated driver license. This GDL would make it so new drivers would gain experience driving under supervision of an older, experienced driver before they can drive on their own.
In the 21st century, our nation is facing a major issue, causing teenagers to lose their lives at the hand of the wheel due to inexperienced driving. “Teen drivers between the ages of 16 and 19 are four times more likely than older drivers to be involved in an automobile crash,” and statistics show. Automobile accidents are the number one cause of teen deaths. Driving regulations are in high need to be changed in order for teenagers to gain more experience with driving before taking the driving test, which could help save countless adolescence’s lives.
Teens need to be taught that driving is a task that is complex and demanding. Parents know how much experience a young driver has, and they know exactly how inconvenient it is when they have to drive with their teen everywhere while they have their permit. Teens tend to cause most traffic accidents in adults’ eyes. They are not experienced yet, and often fail to pay attention to others on the road. They often think of a car as being some type of toy, but they do not know how powerful it really is. The driver education programs must be strengthened in order to make sure that students really have safer habits, behind the wheel experience, and by having a better understanding of all the laws on the road.
Motor vehicles accidents are the leading cause of deaths for teenagers in the United States. According to Vivian Hamilton, “Car crashes kill more teens each year than any other cause” (1). In 2010, seven teenagers from ages 16 to 19 died every day from motor vehicle crashes. In 2011, approximately 1972 young drivers, ages 15 to 20, were killed in motor vehicle crashes (Facts About Teen Drivers”). The age of which a person can drive legally varies from country to county. In the United State, individuals are allow to take a driving test before their legal voting age which is eighteen or legal ...
The Student Permit driver must be accompanied by a NJ Licensed driver, 21 years old or older and be at least licensed for 3 years. The permit driver must drive supervised for 6 months. They can have only have passengers from their home address plus one additional passenger. They may only drive between the hours of 5:01 am to 11 pm
In the 1990's teens would get full licensing and all privileges with little or no testing at all. It wasn’t until 1995 when around twenty states required a learning permit, but the system was still very weak, as teens only had to keep their permit for two to three weeks. But somehow, teen drivers are not as dangerous as they are today. Experts say it is mostly because of deadly distractions in and out of the vehicle (Boulard 38). In 2003, teenagers topped the charts with ten teenagers dying each day in a motor vehicle; that's over thirty-six hundred kids dying because of weak, bendy laws that are meant to protect them....
Through out the years teenagers have been driving without a license. In this century teenagers are decreasing to get their license (Teens getting their driver license. (n.d.). Retrieved November 1, 2013, from ). Teenagers tend to think that just because they know how to pump gas press the brakes and rea...
Teenagers don’t want to be inconvenient with having to wait to respond to their friends about the latest party or school event that’s coming up. Driving is just as good of time as any to text their best friends about the upcoming weekend or update their Facebook status in the mind of a young adult. Even though most teens know they shouldn’t text and drive many are guilty of doing it several times a day. An overwhelming 75% of teens even admit to text messaging while driving (“Distracted Driving,” 2016). Young drivers are more likely to get into an accident due to lack of experience than that of any other driver on the road. Add in texting to the mix it is a recipe for disaster. About 54% of teenage motor vehicle crash deaths occur on Friday, Saturday or Sunday – with Saturday being the deadliest day of the week for teens (Hosansky, 2012). Teenage motor vehicle fatalities are at the highest in the summer months.
The article “This Generation Of Teens Is Drinking And Driving Less,” talks about how the amount of teens that are drinking and driving has decreased over the years. Campaigns, health documentaries, school assemblies, and public service announcements are some of the factors that the CDC thinks is responsible for the decrease in drinking and driving. A survey, conducted by the CDC showed that although the amount has decreased, many teens are still involved in driving intoxicated. A survey in 2014 stated that at least 18% of adults between the ages of 21 and 25 had drank and drove at least one time in the last 12 months. According to the CDC about 17% of teens involved in fatal car crashes were drunk. Also, in 2013, 2,163 teens died, and that
...eir brains are underdeveloped which can cause problems to make good decisions on the road, and some may be easily distracted while using technology like cells phones. Some legislators would suggest that they should extend the driver permit and make the written test harder for teens to pass.
Driving a car and obtaining a driver’s license does perhaps seem to provide people with a great sense of independence and freedom. Teenagers need to feel independent in order to learn to become successful on their own as well as realize how to handle life situations on their own, and having a license seems the perfect start and most effective way to do so. When teenagers feel this independence they tend to act more mature, knowing the responsibilities they must now carry on their own (More4Kids). Teenagers often look forward to the freedom that driving offers as well. Teenagers are able to take drives to escape from life’s many stressed, and leave any troubles at home behind without rebelling out against their loved ones.
“Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of unintentional deaths for teens (16-17),” reported The New York State Department of Health. The most exciting thing about being sixteen in the United States is driving. Teenagers can not wait to be sixteen to drive, however, they do not understand the dangers that come with driving at such a young age. Sixteen is the age between child life and adulthood. It is a time when they are not stable and undergoing change, which makes them unsuitable to drive. Many teenagers would say that they need to get to places. In response to that claim, there are public transportation systems and bikes as available alternatives for young drivers. The financial stability and matureness of eighteen year olds proves