The Driving Age Should Be Allowed

You can't take something away from teens they have been waiting their whole lives for. A lot of people will be mad at everyone for raising the driving age.

Statistics show that ‘in 2011, about 2,650 teens in the United States aged 16-19 were killed’ and almost 300,000 teens were severely injured from fatal crashes. Every day, 7 teens die from car crashes/injuries. Newly licensed drivers who are aged 16-19 are at a higher risk of fatal crashes than drivers aged 20 and over. As well, many of these crashes are caused by teens that text, talk, or drink and drive. Inexperienced drivers, who are many 16 -19 year olds in the United States cause higher insurance, accidents and crashes, and so, the legal driving age should be increased to 18.

The minimum driving age should be raised because teen drivers need more experience and deadly car crashes will decrease. As a teenager one of the many things wanted is freedom and independence. Although knowing what you want is a good thing, it is not so good to take a risk on something as serious as driving and have a “know-it all” attitude. With motor vehicle crashes being the leading cause of death for U.S. teens, raising the minimum driving age is a very important decision. When considering this change we need to remember that it is a decision that will affect all of us.

“Driving mishaps can happen to anyone, but they happen all too frequently to teenage drivers because of their lacking significant experience behind the wheel…in recent years, safety experts, elected officials, and public policy experts have focused on strengthening such state laws with the goal of making the roads safer for teens. ” (Andrews, 2) New laws should be made to keep teens and the road a safer place.  The driving age should be raised to 18 to reduce many dangers.

Many teenagers cannot wait for the day they grab ahold of their licenses. They think of many new opportunities they have waiting for them behind the wheel. Teens may use this opportunity for reasons such as driving to school and work or running errands. Yet, sometimes they can get a little careless and cause a safety concern on the road with other commuters. Therefore, the age limit should be raised to the age of eighteen.

Turning sixteen is a major turning point in a teenager’s life, you’re finally at the age where you are given much more responsibility and freedom than before. And the biggest responsibility is being able to get your license and drive. And being given the keys to a car means a teenager can move on from depending on their parents. That’s why raising the driving age from sixteen will cause much more harm than good to many teen’s lives. The legal driving age should not be raised, despite the many efforts by the government. There is no need to raise it, the positive effects will not come close to the negatives that come’s along with it, additionally teens need to get prepared for the real world, need to drive to get around, and most of the time car crashes are not even their fault. If push comes to shove their needs to be better driver education and standards to help teens to be more prepared to drive and improving graduating driver licensing. Graduating driver licensing(GDL) or restrictive licensing is a way that states regulate what a teen can do when they first get their license to limit the amount of crashes they get into and to keep them safe. Although the age differs from state to state the same general restrictions still apply. Which include determining whether a new driver can drive with passengers, and even having a curfew set for driving times. In Florida sixteen-year old cannot drive between 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. Keeping them off the streets at night. They however cannot

Reading the article Should the driving age be raised? written by Shari Roan, got me thinking about the safety of teenagers as well as adults. The article explains a lot of what the requirements are in order to be driving in all the 50 states. It gives us statistics on how many lives of young adults we’ve lost throughout the years but, thankfully the restrictions that DMV’s are putting on 16 to 17 year olds has allowed the percentages to drop. Although, the accidents are now increasing with drivers in the age category of 18 to 19 year olds.The article reminds us of the risk we as teens put ourselves Reading this article has lead me to thinking that we as teens need to take more responsibility for our actions and agree into raising the age to drive, but of course with some other restrictions and requirements.

Firstly, accidents happen to everyone. People believe that the reason younger teens are more likely to experience a car accident or wreck is that they have the least experience. That is not always the case. If the age is moved to 18, for example, 18 year-olds are still just as inexperienced as the 16 year-olds. Teens who have little practical experience of driving in the real world will be just as dangerous at any age. Until they have received practice, these drivers are potentially threatening. Driving is a skill that has to be learned. One must develop this skill through experience.

Teenagers dream of the day when they will receive their license and take a step closer to independence and gaining freedom from their parents. It is the rite of passage that many fifteen-year old yearn for. We count the days to our 16th birthday, waiting to make a trip to the Department of Motor Vehicles to receive our permit. It is exciting, exhilarating and just the mere thought of racing down the country roads make our spine tingle...Freedom! We all remember those months leading up to getting our permits but in those first days behind the wheel do we think about the number of deaths and accidents that occur due to teen driving? The number of families destroyed, futures cut short all because that excitement we feel takes us over and

Teens have accidents due to simple mistakes. These can vary from failing to scan the road to misjudging driving conditions. However, some things have to be experienced and learned when driving alone. Dr. Scott Masten, a researcher with the California’s Department of Motor Vehicles, said “the whole thing about learning to drive is you need to expose yourself to crash risk to get experience.” Part of this issue is from driving dependently. Having an adult driver point out examples of unsafe driving and explain to them how they are dealing with these distractions.

There was another student death as a result of a car accident in 2011. It is a common fact that teen drivers have higher accident instance rates than their adult counterparts, due to a plethora of factors. First, teen drivers have not been driving for as long and do not have all of the experience that adult drivers have. Also, the incidence rate of accidents increases with the amount of teen passengers in the car. In a study done by the Center for Research and Policy at Johns Hopkins University researchers found that, “The highest death rate (5.61 per 10 million trips) was observed among drivers aged 16 years carrying 3 or more passengers” (Chen). Because of the multiple deaths and injuries caused by traveling to canning destinations, as well as the fact that Penn State students are a high-risk population for car accidents, it’s unsurprising that safety concerns are shared by Penn State administration members, parents, and students alike.

Wednesday, August 5th, 2015 the day an article was passed out by the name of Should the driving age be raised? created by Shari Roan in September 13, 2011. I am currently a student attending Vaughn Internationals Study Academy as a senior and I believe this article has opened my eyes to how adults interpret the idea of teens driving. In this article there are about 24 paragraphs, I have only read 6 paragraphs and already have came to a conclusion that this article is unfair to teen drivers. Although, there are many points made against the idea of teens driving alone, something here is missing..

Due to safety concerns, many states across the country have increased the age at which teenagers are able to start driving. The state legislature is considering raising the minimum age from 16 to 18, which is a legal adult. This situation has been a huge debate for many years mainly between teens and older adults. However, there’s more reasons why the age shouldn’t change.

Teens tend to be safer drivers then their middle-aged counter parts. The number of 15-20-year-old drivers in 2008 in single-vehicle crashes made up 14%, multi-vehicle was 10.4%, and 15-20year old drivers made up 11.9% of all fatal crashes; while the more middle aged 25-34year old drivers consisted of 20.9% for single vehicle crashes, 19% of all multi-vehicle crashes, and 19.8% of all fatal crashes, immensely higher stats then the teen drivers. This shows that teens are by far safer drivers then the middle aged, mature, adults.

Teen driving is unsafe and dangerous, teen driving is the leading cause of teenage deaths in the United States with more than 5,000 teens dying a year. 17 year old Weston Griggs, killed himself and the 2 passengers he had in his car. But, this accident was no accident. Weston was going 70 mph in a 40 mph speed zone. The issue in this story is that young drivers like Weston, inexperienced and full of adrenaline are just hurting them selves and others by getting behind the wheel at such a young age. Teens between the ages 15 through 17 do not belong on the road. Outrageous amounts of teens are dying every year and these numbers are not changing, so why keep them on the road? Teen driving in the United States have three main problems