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Why the legal driving age should be lowered
Should we increase the minimum driving age
Why driving age should be raised to 18 essay
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What do you think would happen if the state legislature made the minimum driving age 18 instead of 16? The state legislature is considering raising the minimum driving age from 16 to 18. They should keep it at 16 because teenagers need more experience before going away from home, they need the practice of being responsible, and they also might need to be able to get places but if they can’t drive, they can’t go anywhere.
First, teenagers need more experience in driving because leaving home at 18 with no driving skills would be a disaster waiting to happen. 16 year old teenagers need a little taste of what it is going to be like out in the real world once they move away from home. Teenagers need more than just two years of driving practice
If people want to save lives by raising the driving age, then how about saving lives by allowing only women to drive? Except raising the driving age won't save lives. Studies show that it is inexperience, not age, that causes accidents. Raising the driving age will just create inexperienced, accident-prone drivers at 18 instead of 16. Teens need the ability to drive just as much as anyone else—to get to school,
...year, raising the minimum driving age to 16 seems hopeful in making safer roads for society. In doing so we all should strongly encourage our teenage drivers to be more mature, to pay more attention, to be more confident in their driving, and to not think that they are so invincible to accidents.
Sixteen year olds do have a valid argument as to why the age should stay where it is now. Endersby argues that many teens are in fact safe and careful drivers, they should not be punished for the bad behavior of others. 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 get to 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 licensing. 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. (Endersby)
Driving is something people do everyday. Although many people do it well, some do not, that being said the legal age to drive should be raised to twenty one years of age. The driving age should be raised because teens at the ages of fourteen through twenty should not be behind the wheel for the simple fact that they are just too young and too inexperienced to drive, also someone of that age can get more distracted than a person who is twenty-one or older and has had some time to mature and become responsible enough to operate a motor vehicle. “In the United States, 16–19-year-olds have the highest incidence of motor vehicle deaths among licensed drivers and motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death among 15–20-year-olds.” (Haggerty
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.
New drivers at the age of sixteen tend to take driving for granted rather then as a privilege. With limitations on young new drivers it will help them have a clear mind while driving. A sixteen year old with other peers in the car, music pumped up, and so forth tend to get distracted easily. With such distraction it may cause the new sixteen-year-old driver to have a better judgment while driving.
Teens should not have to wait until they earn a high school diploma to drive. When a teen graduates high school they will have to go out into the real world with no experience of driving. If they get it two years prior to graduating there is plenty of
Teens only make up seventeen percent of the population today, but almost twenty percent of fatal crashes are due to teenagers behind the wheel. Growing numbers suggest to change the driving age to eighteen and some even believe that changing it to twenty-one may save even more lives. With a sixteen year old behind the wheel, accidents are even more likely to occur when compared to a seventeen year old (Boulard). With so much new technology in today’s society there are more distractions on the road than ever before; therefore the legal driving age should be raised to save more lives. If we do not act quickly then more lives will be lost.
Engines roaring and cars flying down the highway recklessly, racing to the finish. This is a stereotyped outlook on teen drivers. This however, is not the case. Teens don’t drive to race down the road. They drive for freedom. They drive to get where they need to be on their own. The driving age should not be raised to 18 because it takes away their feeling of freedom, Denies the access to needed transportation, denies experience, It puts additional stress on parents, and they need to be learning the driving skill while they’re young.
More than 5,000 teenagers die while driving each year in the United States (Gregory). In my opinion this is due to three different, yet equally important factors. The first factor is that the teenage mind is yet to be fully developed, causing them to make irresponsible and sometimes reckless decisions. The second factor is that the experience of driving has evolved since the original driving age was established in the early 20th century. The third and final aspect to take into consideration would be that driving is the lowest minimum age of any adult restricted activity in the United States. Although, it can be one of the more harmful, not only to the perspective driver but his or her surroundings as well. Taking all three of these factors into account I believe the minimum driving age should be raised to 18 to decrease the accident rate amongst teenagers.
Turning the age of sixteen is a huge step in the life of a teenager. When becoming the age of sixteen a new challenge is brought into that person’s life, and that new challenge is driving a car. But are sixteen year olds ready for this for this task? Some people would say that driving a car can be very problematic for a sixteen year old. Those people are right, sixteen year old should not be driving cars at that age, and just leave it for the people who are eighteen or even older to handle such a task. There are several good reasons why the government should raise the legal driving age to eighteen than leaving it at sixteen.
If we were to raise the driving age it would most likely be changed to 18. The best reasons for raising it to 18 would probably be that they are more responsible. “Children are not equipped to handle these vehicles, which are hard for even an experienced, adult driver to handle.” (Ron Shaffer) They have More money because of there jobs and if you go away from home you need a license.
How old is it to drive? Most would argue the legal driving age of sixteen seems appropriate for someone to begin taking the wheel, while others say that twenty-one is a more sufficient age. Even though raising or maintaining the driving age at sixteen contains both pros and cons, major facts need to come to consideration if the driving age ever increases. As a teenager driving, I believe that people wanting to raise the driving age do not realize the negative effect that that would cause. For instance, if the age increased, teenagers would lose independence and freedom, parents would have to sacrifice their time and freedom, and even though teenagers die in car crashes every year, it would not decrease the overall number of deaths per year.
Many accidents are caused because teenagers are unaware of driving risks and hazardous situations. One piece of evidence that shows that teenagers need driving experience appears in the following quote, “Teens are more likely than older drivers to underestimate dangerous situations or not be able to recognize hazardous situations,” ("Teen Drivers: Get the Facts"). Teenagers will not have enough driving experience if the driving age is lifted. If teenagers are allowed to drive at sixteen then they will be prepared to drive later on. The longer one waits to drive, the longer it takes for them to become prepared for the risks and hazards of
“Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time,” said by Steven Wright. Teenagers look forward to their sixteenth birthday so they are able to drive. Everyone has felt that feeling where they can hardly wait to get behind the wheel and start driving. Little do people know teen drivers are more likely to die from a car accident than from a homicide, suicide, or cancer combined (Littlefield). They are mostly inexperienced with the road and how to handle distractions. If the age were moved to eighteen teenagers would have more driving experience (Sostarecz). Teenage drivers are extremely eager to drive because of freedom, but they are not aware of the distractions and peer pressure on the road; their experience of driving is not as well as others and statistics show how many deaths are caused due to teenage driving.