Opinion: Raise the driving age?
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Getting a license at age 16 has been a rite of passage for generations of American teens, but an auto insurance industry research group is calling for that to change. Drivers between the ages of 16 and 20 are the deadliest on the road, it says, and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety is urging states to raise the driving age to 17 or even 18.
On its web site, the institute acknowledges the unpopularity of its stand, particularly with teenagers and maybe even more so with their parents, who long to end their period of indentured servitude as chauffeurs:
‘This is a tough sell,’ says Anne McCartt, Institute senior vice president for research, ‘but it’s an important enough issue to challenge the silence and at least consider changing the age at which we allow teenagers to get their licenses to drive. After all, graduated licensing has been successful ever since states began to adopt these programs more than a decade ago, and raising the licensing age is a logical next step to reduce driving by the riskiest motorists on the road, the youngest ones.’ The graduated systems in most US states include permit periods and then limit when and with whom young beginners may drive. The result has been to lower the crash rates in state after state.
According to the National Highway Safety Administration, the rate of crashes per mile driven for 16-year-olds is almost 10 times the rate for drivers ages 30 to 59. But rather than raising the driving age, many states, in addition to issuing graduated licenses, impose driving curfews and require periods of supervised driving.
What do you think?