When thinking of cars, most people focus on the convenience that cars brought into their lives, and discuss only the positive aspects of car. But behind these advantages, cars also have a lot of negative impacts, of which, car accidents are the most troublesome. They cause us to lose many lives every day. Most of the fatal car accidents are caused by speeding; among which, young drivers take up a high percentage.
When teenagers are driving, they may be texting messages to friends, talking on the phone, or doing other things, so they cannot focus on driving. Comparing adult drivers with young drivers, most teenagers lack driving experiences, and are therefore have more immature driving skills, and they easily cause unnecessary accidents. This is the reason why I think the congress should raise driving age to eighteen in the United States.
Though different states have different laws and different limitations of driving age, the United States of America has the youngest drivers in the world. In some states, teenagers can get driving permits when they are fifteen, and they can get their drive licenses when they turn to seventeen. Age impacts human no matter physically or psychologically; before humans turn eighteen, the cells in the brain are still maturing. So in this aspect of car accidents, teenagers mostly seem failed to reacting quickly in a crisis. The CEO of Auto Safety Magnets, Melih Oztalay, said: “Wisdom and any genuine desire to protect young people both undeniably dictate that it is better if teenagers do not start to drive until they are at least 17 or preferably 18 years old” (Oztalay).
Another thing is, the government requests the drivers must have insurance; however, teenagers are always paying more for the insurance. The reason why teenager has to pay more than adult is because “[According] to the National Highway Safety Administration, the rate of crashes per mile driven for 16-year-olds is almost 10 times the rate for drivers ages 30 to 59” ( Opinion L.A.). As from these statistics, car accidents are more likely to happen with young drivers, and some accidents are caused by speeding, young drivers lack of driving experiences and mature driving skills, or drivers cannot concentrate when they are driving.
There are some parents disagree with raising the driving age because they are tired of being the taxi; pick up the kids after school and drive them to the school every day. If their kids know how to drive, then the parents can save a lot of time to do other things. Otherwise, their kids can hang out with his friends, and drive the car to work. It is convenient for both parents and kids.
Although “some parents want to raise the age, the most teenagers do not because they think that earning the privilege to drive is a right-of-passage and thinking that if you can drive, you can do anything you put your mind to” (Croley), those parents forget that teenagers are not mature yet, and they don’t have too much experience about driving, they just hope that their children can grow up faster, but the thing is, maybe it’s better to protect them because they can’t.
The driver education course is really important for the drivers who don’t have too much experience for driving, and this is the way to let drivers to learn and get ready to drive. Although the highway doesn’t have the speed limit in Germany, the drivers still can drive safety. As driving is another way to show the maturity of the young drivers, if the driving age is raised from sixteen to eighteen, teenagers can have more time to practice in the driving lesson in high school, gain the driving experiences, and parents can also teach teenagers how to drive correctly and make teenagers have more confidence.
Comparing the United States with Germany, Germany has the strict law for driving, because the drivers can drive as fast as they want on the highway in Germany, if they do not have driving experiences, it is really easy to get the serious car accidents. German government requires people have to be at least eighteen and “have completed the driver education course and school you are on probation for 2 years. During these 2 years a lesser driving violation would require you to re-take the driver education course” (Oztalay), and it’s easy for a driver’s license to be taken away if there is a slight driving problem, and if it is taken away, even if the driver gets it back, he/she will be on probation for another four years.
All in all, as the information from these articles suggest, the advantages for raising driving age from sixteen to eighteen are great and influencing a number of people, as rising the driving age can let young drivers have more time to get ready and also protect them and other people. It can reduce the car accidents that cause by young drivers, such as speeding, and not having too much driving experience and driving skill, and immaturity.
Work Cited
Rubin, Rita. "Report makes a case for raising driving age." USA TODAY (2008): n. pag. Web.
16 May 2010. .
Melih, Oztalay. "Raising the driving age to 18." SearchWarp (2005): n. pag. Web. 16 May 2010.
"Raise the Driving Age?." Opinion L.A. (2008): n. pag. Web. 16 May 2010.
Croley, Ds. "Pros and cons of raising the driving age to 18 ." Helium n. pag. Web. 17 May 2010.
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