It’s Time to Raise the Driving Age

First thing Sunday morning, you go in the kitchen and open up the newspaper. Once again the front page reads, “High School Students Killed” or “ Teen Loses Control”. Why? Another car accident. The truth is the number of deaths and accidents caused by 16 year olds every day is astonishing. I believe the only way to stop the rising epidemic is to raise the driving age, implement a rewards program, and increase parental involvement.

Raising the driving age would make a huge impact in the amount of car accidents, but its not necessarily the teens fault, its their brains. Every person is taking a risk when getting into a car, but do parents realize how much of a risk it is to place their teen in one? "The studies point to the fact that teens are taking the highest risk because in some respects the brains don't know any better," said William Bronrott, a Democratic legislator representing Montgomery County in Maryland's House of Delegates. (Stark 2).

Researchers studying the brain say the last section to develop, the frontal lobes, may not mature until a person is age 25 or older. You could say the frontal lobe is the executive center of the brain, the part of the brain that's responsible for planning, organizing, anticipating the consequences of one's actions. I am not suggesting raising the age to 25, but my studies have shown that the frontal lobe matures 60% in the one year between 16 and 17. Therefore I believe raising the permit age to 16, the age for a restricted license to 17, with opportunity for a full license at 18 years old would make a significant difference.

I understand, coming from a single parent home, that transportation to work, after school activities, and school can be very difficult at times, therefore in circumstances that a 16 year old would need to drive I suggest a rewards program. This rewards program, provided by their insurance company, would give new drivers privileges as they gain experience. Every 3 months without a traffic citation, including speeding, the driver will gain interstate driving, right to have a passenger in the car, night driving, and so on. This will not only give them the incentive to drive with caution, but also the lesson of knowing that driving is a privilege not a right.

Parents are a huge influence in every aspect of their children’s life, that is if they choose to be. I think parents should go to extreme measures when it comes to making rules for their children involving automobiles. Rules should include mapping out routes for destinations, excluding narrow roads, bridges, interstates, and dangerous curves. Another fact I ran across in my research is, Buford High who also has teamed with Healthy Lancaster, a private organization