Why the driving age should be raised to 18

Why the driving age should be raised to Eighteen

INTRODUCTION

Raising the driving age to eighteen is the right move . Research done had shown that many sixteen year old drivers are the most likely to meet car accidents . Another reason is their immaturity to decide on life threatening situations . A third reason to reduce the number of sixteen year old car deaths . On the other hand , the opponents of the raising of the driving age contend that inexperience and not maturity is the leading cause of sixteen year old accidents (Rubin , 2008

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Research done had shown that many sixteen year old drivers are the most likely to meet car accidents . The Journal Gazette emphasized that more than five thousand U .S . youngsters figured in car accidents . A National Highway Safety Commission research shows that accidents that involved sixteen year olds were ten times higher than the car accidents where the drivers were between 30 yrs old and 59 yrs old (Irvine 2008

Another reason is their immaturity to decide on life threatening situations . A study conducted showed that sixteen year old teens could easily create an accident -free comfort zone characterized as a `false sense of assurance . A teener would proudly say , `I have never met an accident while driving and drinking at the same time even though I had overshot my drinking level (Finken , Jacobs Laguna , 1998 . A third reason is to reduce the number of sixteen year old car deaths . Car accidents that victimize the sixteen year olds would be postponed to a later date . An eighteen year old car driver would be more mature to drive and make life threatening decisions than a sixteen year old (Finken , Jacobs Laguna , 1998 . Another research showed that sixteen year old teens describe maturity as going back to their thirteen year old period whereas an eighteen year old person stated that maturity is trying to figure out the future and the study of ways to tackle the problems of tomorrow 's world (Adalbjarnardottir , 2002 . Another research confirms that teenagers of different age groups have different maturities and are not equivalent in terms of the possibility of being involved in accidents (Deery Fildes , 1999 ,

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The opponents of raising of the driving age contend that inexperience and not maturity is the leading cause of sixteen year old accidents . This is the contention of Mr . Adiran Lund president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety . This can easily be contradicted with a survey result . A survey conducted in 2005 indicated that 64 out of 100 ,000 sixteen year olds had met car accidents . On the other hand only fifty nine out of 100 ,000 seventeen year olds had met car accidents according to the report presented by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to Congress . In fact , senators in Florida , Delaware Georgia and Massachusetts had d bills to increase the driving age in their district to eighteen . However , they were not successful because there were too many lobbyists and opponents to...