Argumentative Analysis: The Development Of 18 Year Old Driver

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ving. The dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex in the brain is not developed by age 16 in most teenagers. Just like physical growth, brain development could be slower or quicker for different people. In most 16 year olds though, this part of the brain is undeveloped. The dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain that controls impulses and decision-making. This can explain part of the reason for reckless driving in teenagers, but hormone growth adds to this as well. Hormones tell teenagers to take more risks; and since the part of their brain that controls this is not fully developed, they take the risk (Davis). This can be a huge problem when driving. If a 16 year old sees a red light, hormones may tell them to run it. Because the …show more content…

This is a major reason for why an 18 year old driver is safer than a 16 year old driver.
There are many things that happen inside and outside of the car that can distract teenage drivers. Some of these include drowsiness, what time they are driving at, driving under the influence, and passengers in the car. Drowsy driving causes 21% of fatal automobile accidents (“Statistics”). It especially occurs in teenagers because of their lack of sufficient sleeping hours due to school, homework, work, and extracurricular activities. The time teenagers are driving at can be unsafe conditions too. Fatal crashes involving 16 year olds at night is almost twice as likely than in the daytime (“Statistics”). Summer months, June and July, had the highest number of teen car crashes (“Teen Driving”). In 2012, 53% of teenage deaths from car accidents occurred on weekend nights (“Teen Driving”). So, driving at night, during the summer, or on the weekend can clearly be less safe than driving in the day, during other months, and during the week. This does make sense because teenagers aren’t driving during school hours and they aren’t usually in school during any of these considerably dangerous times. Driving while under the influence is another cause of

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