The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety is calling for the driving age to be raised across the nation to 17 or even 18. The justification is that in New Jersey, where driving licenses are issued at age 17, there is a lower fatality rate than in states with a lower driving age. Opponents of the proposal argue that it would be a greater burden on parents to have to chauffeur their children around for even long, and that having a license teaches children responsibility.
As is normally the case with such debates, all parties involved completely miss what is actually going on and try and force regulations and justifications that are, at best, band aids and, at worst, counterproductive. There is little, if any, difference between someone who is 16, 17, 18, or even 21 when it comes to driving. The ability to control a vehicle is a learned skill, and any 16 year old is fully capable of learning the skills required. But what about “responsibility” you say? 16 year olds are also fully capable of being “responsible,” it’s just that society has decided they are not, and thus infantalizes them at every step. So, OF COURSE they act irresponsibly – you would too if you were treated like a 2-year-old every day of your life.
The real issue is that NO ONE AT ANY AGE IS TAUGHT HOW TO DRIVE CORRECTLY. Driver’s Ed was, and continues to be, and complete joke. If it didn’t jeopardize people’s safety, it would even be a funny joke. But it does put people at risk, because new drivers have absolutely no idea what the limits of their car are, or what to do in an emergency. In reality, you learn to drive after you get your license, which is an atrocious system. Moreover, in this system, it does not matter when you get your license, as you are just as much of a risk because you need to learn how to drive. All this proposal will do is push back the time when we let completely inept and inexperienced drivers on the road.
So really, this is the proposal of insurance companies: too many 16 year olds don’t know how to drive, so we should raise the driving age so that only 17 or 18 year olds who don’t know how to drive will be on the road. Once again, it doesn’t matter if you are 16, 17, or 50 – if you haven’t been taught how to control a car properly, you will ALWAYS be a threat.
on September 17, 2008 at 6:32 pm Shawn wrote:
This is also a valid argument against taking away the licenses of kids under 18 for even one speeding ticket. I’ve talked to cops about it, and nearly all of whom I’ve spoken with agree with me…rather than keeping their license and learning how to drive more safely, the state wants to take it and then give it back with six months of driving experience missing from under the young driver’s belt? Seems counterintuitive to me. It just sets us up for future failure. At least, that’s my opinion. But as a 17 year old driving with a Junior Operator License, I suppose I am biased.
on September 17, 2008 at 6:53 pm Noah wrote:
That’s a very interesting point about the delayed learning and I’ll definitely agree with you on that. Having a different set of rules for minors also furthers the infantalization of teenagers in general, which I would argue only makes them act less mature, rather than serve to control them. Which of course gets back to my main point: people should get their license when they are fully capable of driving, and that license should be the same as for everyone else.