Max Dolan

Professor Geiselman

English 1101

April 16, 2018

Push the minimum driving age back!

A big step for many teenagers is acquiring a license. It represents freedom and maturity.

However, it seems like many teens lose that maturity once they start driving without an adult.

These young sixteen year olds do not have fully developed brains, and are very vulnerable.

When with friends, these new drivers forget many necessary skills while driving. The

inexperience, peer pressure, and recklessness of these sixteen year olds is not needed on the road.

If these teenagers were given another year to mature, learn more about driving, and develop;

there would be less hazardous driving on the road. The minimum age requirement for a license

should be raised, as it makes the roads safer, lets teenagers mature emotionally, allows one’s

brain to develop, and gives teens without license more time to learn the current laws of the road.

One reason to raise the minimum driving age is to improve safety on the roads. There are

over 5.25 million car accidents per year in the United States. Of these 5.25 million accidents,

almost forty-thousand end with a fatality. These are mind-boggling numbers, given that there are

over 3 billion people in the United States. Teenagers account for many of these accidents, and

represent over four-thousand of the forty-thousand deaths in car accidents. Ten percent may not

seem like much, but when one considers all the other age groups that drive; four-thousand is a

huge portion for one age group. In fact, “teens crash four times more often than members of any

other age group” (All State Blog Team). This statistic could be improved if the driving age limit
were raised. In New Jersey, the minimum driving age is seventeen, instead of sixteen. The extra

year to obtain a license shows to be extremely beneficial. “Various studies have shown that the

overall rate of teens killed in crashes in New Jersey has been consistently lower than in some

nearby states.” (“States”). If other states heightened the minimum age to seventeen, there would

be an apparent decrease in accidents, minor or fatal.

Furthermore, all teenagers deal with emotional and social obstacles in their lives.

However, younger teens, like sixteen-year-olds, have less control than older teens. If the driving

age was raised, he or she would have more time to learn how to control these obstacles. Many

studies have found that social issues, like peer pressure, impact these teens heavily. A study

performed at the University of Michigan’s Institute of Transportation Research demonstrates

how teenagers are affected by having other people in the car. The study was performed to prove

that accidents are more prone when an adolescent is driving with friends, or others of the same

age. The study also was only conducted with male drivers and male passengers, because theories

suggest that males give in to peer pressure easier. At the end of the experiment, the results read

that “The presence of a male passenger was associated with a reduction in the scanning range of

male adolescent drivers. This reduction could be a result of potential cognitive load imposed to

the driver due to the presence of a passenger and the real or perceived normative influences or

expectations from the passenger.” (Simons-Morton). The conclusion tells that having a teenage

male passenger that is either silent or disruptive affects the driver by decreasing their perception

of their surroundings. The results between age groups were not surprising, sixteen year olds had

the highest rate of risk-acceptance, which is the term used for things like thrill-seeking, focusing

on something other than the road, and risky behavior. The second was the seventeen-year-olds,

and lastly the eighteen-year-olds. In fact, eighteen-year-olds were twenty-five percent less
susceptible to peer pressure than the sixteen-year-olds. With one or two years being added to the

minimum age limit, there would be a significant decrease in risky behavior of new drivers.

There’s an explanation for the lack of control from teenagers, and why the youngest ones

struggle the most. According to All State, who provides insurance to many of these new drivers,

“Newer studies of the human brain have revealed that the prefrontal cortex is not fully

‘connected’ until the mid-20s.” The prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain that controls

decisions, emotions, and outcome weighing. In sixteen-year-old drivers, the prefrontal cortex is

very undeveloped. This puts younger drivers more at risk for road rage, risky driving habits, and

peer pressure. As a result, sixteen year olds are more capable of being involved a car accident. If

the minimum age was raised to eighteen, or even seventeen, this could result in a more

developed brain. It still may not be completely grown, but there would be better driving

decisions made with a more prepared brain. With better decision-making, these older teenagers

are better drivers and become less involved in car accidents. This not only protects young

teenagers from getting injured, it also protects the adults that use the road as well. By decreasing

the chance of reckless driving and increasing the age limit, everybody that uses the road will be

safer.

With more time without a license, the opportunity to learn about driving and how to drive the

correct way rises tremendously. In 2005, Illinois made one hundred hours of supervised driving a

requirement, and once they were able they got their license, they could only have one passenger

for a period of time. Brett Johnson, a driving teacher at an Illinois high school, was a leading

advocate for these rules to be added into the steps to acquire a license. He told CBS that “Up

through July, the end of this July this year, we've seen a 47 percent drop in fatal crashes" (State).

These rules that were added tremendously made the road safer in Illinois. Not just for teenagers,
but for all. Most states, including Ohio, now have similar rules, but only require fifty hours

instead of one hundred. Even though those reduced fatal crashes greatly, there are still over forty

thousand fatal crashes each year. That is an average of one hundred and ten deaths per day. If

teenagers had another year to learn, they could be more prepared to drive. Instead of fifty or one

hundred hours of supervised driving, teenagers could have one hundred and fifty or two hundred

hours of supervised driving. More in-car lessons with a driving instructor, instead of four, could

happen without the stress of tight scheduling. Giving a child more time to learn and gain

experience behind the wheel would prepare them for the task that is infamously known as the

ninth leading cause for death in the world. If the age limit was pushed back, less car accidents

would occur, and they may not claim as many lives as they do.

Many people think that getting your license at sixteen is a sign that one is growing up and can

handle more responsibilities. But in all honesty, sixteen-year-olds are not mature enough.

Teenagers need to wait another year or two for their licenses. They can learn how to drive on

their own in a safer way, have time to let their brains develop further, overcome emotional and

social blocks, and road will be safe from teenagers that have not acquired the skills and tools to

drive. The sign of maturity that is told to come with a license does not arrive at the age of

sixteen. The maturity appears at the age of seventeen or eighteen, which is when one should be

able to get a license.