Should Minimum Driving Age Be Raised

Every day teens are given access to automobiles. Every day these young people go to their jobs, classes, and athletic practices. Do they all abuse their driving privileges? No. Then why restrict all teens, including the law-abiding and mature, by raising the driving age? This debate reaches all across the nation, to all levels of government, and many related laws and propositions can be found. If the driving age is increased, teenagers will have more difficulty getting jobs and gaining experience. On the other hand, if the driving age is 18, new drivers will have more maturity. So the question remains, should the legal driving age be 18 years old? No, the current driving age

Should the minimum driving age be raised? In the article Traffic Safety Facts the NHTSA states that, 5,864 15 - 20 year old drivers were involved in fatal crashes in 2008, which is a 27% decrease from the crashes in 1998. This is still a big number, and has been tried to be reduced by New Jersey, but ended up not doing much, and instead added and increase of car crashes to an older age group. The minimum driving age should not be raised to allow teens to gain experience, learn responsibility, while staying safe altogether.

The driving age should be lowered to 14 or 15 years old because people should know how to drive a vehicle by then.People need the experience it will improve their driving skills before they get older and it will make it easier for tennagers to get to school and to their job because it will make them understand responsibility.

The big debate as to whether the legal driving age should be raised to eighteen is an ongoing issue. There are both arguments for and against this matter. Younger drivers, as well as old ones, can cause many life-threatening accidents; therefore, raising the minimum driving age could significantly reduce the number of accidents. The accident rates can be lowered considerably if the legal driving age is bumped up to eighteen. This would mean that no more kids could get hurt or worse, killed in a car accident.

Raising the age to eighteen doesn’t provide them more information to drive. It just takes them longer to be able to travel by themselves. Also eighteen is closer to being able to do drugs and they have an excuse to do drugs. Which is not ok. Also if you raise the age, what happens to the people at age sixteen who have a car already? They just have to take

On the counterclaim side if the driving age is raised to 18 then it will save young lives.On Average about nine teens ages 16-19 are killed everyday from car wrecks. If it's raised to 18 then there won’t be as many teens ages 16 and 17 killed in car wrecks. A lot of teens lose their lives a year do to car accidents. On average about 6,000 teenagers die a year due from car wrecks. So that's why it might be a good idea. According to( DRIVE-SAFELY.NET) “ A sixteen year old is almost twice as likely to die in a car crash then a 30 year old.”

Because of safety concerns, many states have increased the age at which teens can begin to drive. The Virginia state legislature is considering raising the minimum driving age from 16 to 18. If the state raises the age to drive, kids would start depending on their parents to take them places. The parents would be chauffeuring their kids to places like school, work, and so on. I think raising the age to drive is a bad idea because the kids don't have to depend on the parents as much, it can teach the kids responsibility and freedom, and it can allow the kids to get jobs without their parents.

Due to state safety concerns many states have raised the minimum legal age to drive. The state of Virginia, which is where I live, is now thinking of doing the same. This state should be looked at with careful consideration. The state of Virginia will look at all reasons why it should not be raised before coming to a conclusion. The driving age should not be raised because it would be much harder to get a job, having another driver in a large family can help with day to day tasks, and social freedom and growing up.

Many people think it is a good idea to change the driving age from 16 to 18. They think it would reduce crashes and stress on parents. They also think it would help out parents that has jobs. However, I believe raising the minimum driving age from 16 to 18 is good because some people has a job, some have sports, and some people are responsible.

teens 16-18 have the highest car crash rates of any age group. Currently the government is only taking precautionary measures. Even though drivers education and written testing are good, there's more the government can do. For such a major issue the government is doing very little to prevent it. The change begins with education. Once people know about the issue then there's more support for government involvement. The government should change the driving age to 18 because politically it would unify the United States under one age and reduce car crashes.

Raising the driving age will cause more death to the older teen by them waiting until their 18 because if they wait they wouldn't have to go through the hoops young teen had to go through. Aubrey’s article states, “ 18 year old drivers increased, and they were behind the wheel and 1,086 more fatal accidents including 18 year olds.” Although scientist have found that 16- year olds have more fatal car crashes. 16 year olds have better experience then 18 year olds because some 16 year olds go through

Raising the age was not an idea based on opinions. Over the years many people and organizations have recorded facts and statistics to support their claims. An example shown on CBS News, shows that “More than 5,000 U.S. teens die each year in car crashes. The rate of crashes, fatal and nonfatal, per mile driven for 16-year-old drivers is almost 10 times the rate for drivers ages 30 to 59, according to the National Highway Safety Administration” (CBS NEWS). One huge influence on the topic was the Insurance Institutes for Highway Safety, they created a seventeen page memo filled with statistics and examples of how raising the age is a necessity. This is not the first attempt to use statistics to support the appeal to raise the age. The Seattle Times states, “The example the institute uses most prominently is New Jersey, the only state with a minimum driver's license age of 17. The report cited a study from 1992-96 in which the rate of crash-related deaths among 16- and 17-year-olds was 18 per 100,000 in New Jersey, compared with 26 per 100,000 in Connecticut, which had a minimum driver's license age of 16 and 4 months” (Willette). Overall the argument that raising the age will result in less teen deaths while driving is highly justified. There are frequent examples and a huge amount of research that proves that younger drivers are more likely to cause harm or damage than an older, more experienced driver.

On June 30, 2014, KTLA News reported a fatal car crash in the Lancaster area. Two sixteen year olds driving at an unknown speed had driven through a stop sign and drove into a big rig. The driver died at the scene and the passenger was pronounced dead at the hospital. The truck driver did try to stop, but was unsuccessful. Stories like these are read across the news headlines frequently. Raising the age limit can prevent and help lower the amount of accidents and fatalities.

While many people think raising the minimum driving age is beneficial, research shows that the amount of fatal crashes involving 15 to 20-year-old drivers has decreased over the past 10 years. If it is raised, it would not help anything. Teens would still drive around at night… just illegally. Teens are busy all the time. If they cannot drive they have to rely on someone else all the time to take them where they need to be. Also, getting a driver’s license is a big step in growing up as a teenager.

It is not the 15-19-year-olds that are the most dangerous on the roads; it is the 20-24-year-olds. The driver license age being raised just means that people have one year less driving experience when they hit the critical fatality ages. If the driver's license age were still 15, that would mean drivers would have at least five years extra driving experience before they enter the most dangerous age-period (20-24-year-olds) which in my opinion would make them much safer drivers. These explanations and examples show that the age increase from 15-16 to obtain your learner's licence was unnecessary as the driver's in the most vulnerable age group (20-24) are not experienced enough to be safer and therefore proves that the raise in age shouldn't have