The Legal Age to Get a Driver’s License Should Be 18

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The Legal Age to Get a Driver’s License Should Be 18

March 16, 2011

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Would you let your children get their driver’s license if you knew they weren’t mature enough and were going to get in a wreck? Times are changing and there are a lot more distractions than before. No one will deny that teen driving is becoming issue. There are more tragic wrecks among teens than ever before and teen death is one of the worse death’s to cope with. Teens today are trying to be as cool as they can be, to some of them that means hot rodding their car and doing burnouts. Have you ever had that crazy teen ride on your back bumper for a mile then go flying past you, it’s almost like they don’t have a care for the world. Some teenager’s problem is just they give in to peer pressure way to easy. If one of their friends tells them to go faster, then they actually will go a lot faster. The legal age limit to get your driver’s license should be raised to 18 because, it will keep the roads safer, let the kids mature, and keep the teens from getting in worse trouble.

Some people ask “if the legal age to drive is 18, then how would some of the kids get to school, work, or their after school clubs and sports.” Alastair Endersby (2008) says that “Teenage drivers are particularly dangerous, so delaying when they get a license will make the roads much safer for everyone. Young people have a different attitude to driving compared to older ones. For example, they can be fearless and thrill-seeking, taking risks that older drivers would not do. They are also more influenced by peer pressure and more competitive, both of which make risky behaviour more likely.” If we can keep the kids off of the road until they’re 18, then I think we will see the number of crashes plummet. Safety Digest(2000) finds that “A recent national survey revealed that 77 percent of teenagers speed when driving, 39 percent

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never wear seat belts or wear them only occasionally, and 21 percent drive after drinking. Conducted by SADD and the Liberty Mutual Group, the survey polled 700 teenagers and 400 parents of teens.” The studies don’t lie that the driving of teenagers is getting worse and worse, I have a little brother who is 18 and sometimes I don’t trust him driving with his friends still. Bob Trebilcock(1997) claims that more than 6,000 teens die each year from automobile accidents, exceeding any other single cause of death for that age group. In my home town, we have been struck with many of teenager driver deaths. I think that if the age limit would have been