Driving Age
Ethsel Lara
May 1, 2015
Government 2305-1002 Abstract.
Being free. Like a wild animal. It feels great. It is how most sixteen year olds feel. They think that they have the world at their fingertips. Everyone is waiting to turn 15 and get a driving permit. Then the next thing to await for is sixteen to get their driver’s license. No longer having to wait for parents to get off of work to give them a ride to a friend’s house. Or wanting to go to the movies but not being able to because parents are busy doing other things and are tired of being Chauffer Mom or Dad. Being sixteen brings on many more distractions, responsibilities anyone could ever ask for. Only 44% of 16 year olds get their license at 16, yet a majority of this
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Everyone is always looking for a distraction from work, school, and sometimes even just from life. Although most distractions are fun, there is always a time and place for everything. As a sixteen year old the distractions are endless, from boys and girls to shoes and dogs. A sixteen year old behind the wheel of a motor vehicle is just asking for trouble. Some of the main distractions for licensed sixteen year olds are, cellphones, music, food, friends, and freedom. Cellphones nowadays are like mini computers in one device. Many sixteen/seventeen year olds cannot live without their phones. Whether they are checking the time or how many likes the last Instagram post has gotten, or actually making calls and texting teens are constantly on their phones. While driving the cellphone becomes one of the highest distraction. “52% of 16 and 17 year-old teen drivers confess to making and answering cell phone calls on the road. 34% admit to text messaging while driving. Teens themselves confirm that texting is their number one driving distraction.” (Statistics on Driving While Texting | GuardChild) Another big distraction sixteen/seventeen year olds face is music or what to listen to while in the car. While some cars only come equipped with cassette players and a turn-the-knob radio, other vehicles have a place for an auxiliary cord, Bluetooth, and CDs. Choosing what to play and how to play music can …show more content…
The state of Texas Requires tobacco retailers to verify the age of purchasers appearing to be younger than 27 years of age through the use of photo identification (Senate Bill 55). There is usually “Under 18 No tobacco. I can 't sell, You can 't buy,” sings at or around convenience stores stating that minors cannot even buy tobacco. This supports my opinion on why the legal driving age should be raised to 18. Lottery tickets also cannot be purchased by anyone under the age of 18, because anyone under the age of eighteen is considered to be a minor.
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References
Gobler, M. (2014, April 1). AAA Report: Distracted driving among teens a much bigger problem than previously thought - Region - Main Line Media News. Retrieved April 13, 2015, from http://www.mainlinemedianews.com/articles/2015/04/13/region/doc5526a90c09fcc382814118.txt
Vock, D. (2013, September 2). Teen drivers are waiting longer to get driver 's licenses, worrying safety experts about more car accidents - Stateline. Retrieved April 13, 2015, from http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2013/09/02/teens-go-slow-on-getting-drivers-licenses
Statistics on Driving While Texting | GuardChild. (2015, January 1). Retrieved April 13, 2015, from http://www.guardchild.com/distracted-driving-statistics/
Senate Bill 55. (2015, January
Over the past two decades the use of cell phones has grown significantly and statistic from the past two years have proven that driving while on the phone or texting is becoming one of the leading causes of traffic accidents today. In 2011, a survey of more than 2800 American adults revealed that even thought they know that using a cell phone or texting while driving is distracting, they do it anyway, and teens surveyed admit that texting while driving is their number one distraction. "Each year, 21% of fatal car crashes involving teenagers between the ages of 16 and 19 were the result of cell phone usage. This result has been expected to grow as much as 4% ...
Jackson, Nancy Mann. ʺCell Phones and Texting Endanger Teen Drivers.ʺ Teen Driving. Ed. Michele Siuda Jacques. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2013. At Issue. Rpt. from ʺDn't txt n drv: Why You Should Disconnect While Driving.ʺ Current Health Teens (Mar. 2011). Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 14 Nov. 2013.
In this article written by the author Bruce Feiler, titled “Teenage Drivers? Be Very Afraid”, he talks about how he suggest the parents to stop being helicopter parents and allow their children to be independent. However, other professionals’ suggestions are the opposite when teenagers start to drive. As a result of the teenagers’ immaturity, the parents are told to be more involved because their child’s life may be in danger. As stated in the article by Nichole Moris “the most dangerous two years of your life are between 16 and 17, and the reason for that is driving.” There are various factors that play huge roles through this phrase of the teenagers’ life: other passengers, cellphones, and parents. In 2013, under a million teenage drivers were involved in police-reported crashes, according to AAA. The accidents could have been more but many teenage accidents go unreported. As a result, one of their recommendations to the parents is to not allow their children to drive with other passengers: other passengers can big a huge distraction and could increase the rate of crashes by 44 percent. That risk doubles with a second passenger and quadruples with three or more. Furthermore, as technology has taken over teenagers’ lives, the parents should suggest to those teenagers who insists on using the phones that the only safe place for it to be: in a dock, at eye level, on the dashboard. The worst place is the cup holder, the driver’s lap, and the passenger’s seat. Next, professionals also suggest that the parents implement their own rule and even continue the ones like the graduated driver’s licenses regulations. This regulation includes restrictions like not allowing their children to drive between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m. To
Pabst, Lora, and Pat Pheifer. "Caution, Teens: Effort to Raise Driving Age Ahead." StarTribune.com Web. 15 Mar. 2010. .
Distracted driving is such an increasing problem in the U.S. that there are laws against driving distracted. In New Jersey there is a handheld ban for all drivers and that is a primary law. There is a ban on all cell phone use (handheld and hands-free) for novice drivers. There is also a ban on texting for all drivers. This problem Is growing, drivers who are texting are 23.2 times more likely to get into a crash than people who aren’t (Cell Phones and Texting). Every driver takes their eyes off the road for approximately 4.6 seconds when texting. Driving is a new skill for teens, so doing multiple things simultaneously takes more effort for them than for more experienced drivers. Texting and driving can ruin families because when texting and driving there is a higher chance of getting in a crash. There are only 2 percent of people who can actually multitask successfully. Even though teens are more likely to try multitasking they are still part of the 98 percent who can’t do it safely. For example, Nebraska teen Emily Reynolds says...
Irvine, Martha. (2008, September 9). HuffPost Business. “Teen Driving Age Should Be Raised, Says Auto Safety Group.”
Driving is something people do everyday. Although many people do it well, some do not, that being said the legal age to drive should be raised to twenty one years of age. The driving age should be raised because teens at the ages of fourteen through twenty should not be behind the wheel for the simple fact that they are just too young and too inexperienced to drive, also someone of that age can get more distracted than a person who is twenty-one or older and has had some time to mature and become responsible enough to operate a motor vehicle. “In the United States, 16–19-year-olds have the highest incidence of motor vehicle deaths among licensed drivers and motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death among 15–20-year-olds.” (Haggerty
I. Introduction A. Should 16 year old teenagers be able to drive? B. “Those who favor raising the driving age say that statistics show teenagers are more likely to get into accidents than adults. What they don't say is that statistics also show that men of all ages are 77 percent more likely to kill someone while driving than women.
An article written in 2016 by Chittom, Lynn-nore, and Finley mentioned this about many critics’ views on the social problems created by raising the legal driving age, “Meanwhile, critics argue that people under age twenty-five are legally allowed to vote, join the military, marry, attend college, and drink alcohol, and so should not be prevented from driving.” Across America, when teenagers reach the age of sixteen or seventeen, they begin their journey towards being an independent and responsible adult. Choices about career, marriage, what and who to vote for, and whether or not to join the armed forces are just a few of the decisions that teenagers are starting to work through (Chittom, Lynn-nore, and Laura Finle, 2016). However, without the privilege of legal driving, many of the steps towards adulthood became confusing and complicated in many ways. Ultimately, raising the driving age lessens the responsibility that comes into play while transitioning into an
Davis, Robert. “Is 16 too Young to Drive? Growing Numbers Think So.” USA Today. 1 Mar.
Getting a driver’s license can be the most exciting part of a teens life. But what do teens have to do beforehand in order to obtain that license? For some, it's months of training and for others, they can complete everything within a few months. But does all that training make teens better drivers? The three main reasons why more drivers education for teens is not beneficial are: restrictions for teen drivers make it harder on parents, teens have to be able to get around without their parents, and not all teens need more drivers education.
“Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of unintentional deaths for teens (16-17),” reported The New York State Department of Health. The most exciting thing about being sixteen in the United States is driving. Teenagers can not wait to be sixteen to drive, however, they do not understand the dangers that come with driving at such a young age. Sixteen is the age between child life and adulthood. It is a time when they are not stable and undergoing change, which makes them unsuitable to drive. Many teenagers would say that they need to get to places. In response to that claim, there are public transportation systems and bikes as available alternatives for young drivers. The financial stability and matureness of eighteen year olds proves
“Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time,” said by Steven Wright. Teenagers look forward to their sixteenth birthday so they are able to drive. Everyone has felt that feeling where they can hardly wait to get behind the wheel and start driving. Little do people know teen drivers are more likely to die from a car accident than from a homicide, suicide, or cancer combined (Littlefield). They are mostly inexperienced with the road and how to handle distractions. If the age were moved to eighteen teenagers would have more driving experience (Sostarecz). Teenage drivers are extremely eager to drive because of freedom, but they are not aware of the distractions and peer pressure on the road; their experience of driving is not as well as others and statistics show how many deaths are caused due to teenage driving.
Works Cited Gerdes, Louise I. -. The Driving Age Should Not Be Increased. Teen Driving. Detroit: Greenhaven, 2008. 83-85.
To lay a foundation for a productive solution, teens in more rural areas should have the opportunity to drive sooner than the legal age now. “For full driving privileges, an applicant must be at least 17 or be 16-1/2 and have completed an approved driver education course and held an intermediate license for six months.” (Bishop of Wyoming Department of Transportation) If one was able to apply for a license at an earlier age, the teen would not be pestering the elders to be a shuttle for them. That does happen to be a disadvantage some days, and this could be the solution. Obviously, there is things that can solve this minor problem that effects most teens.