16 may be too young to drive
I’m sure for all the born and raised Minnesotans out there, the title of this blog (which is weak, I know) my seem a bit ridiculous.
The driving age has been 16 (with a permit at 15) for probably as long as anyone can remember, but, it could all change if the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s recommendation of raising the age to 17 or 18 is taken seriously.
If the numbers I’m hearing are correct, I’m not going to lie, maybe it seems like a good idea. The Minnesota Department of Safety reports between 2005 and 2006, 16 and 17-year-olds accounted for 116 fatal accident resulting in 133 deaths.
Pair that with the Institutes findings that in New Jersey (only state with significantly higher driving age), 16 and 17-year-old crash related deaths accounted for 18 out of 100,000, compared with nearby Connecticut making up 26 per 100,000, and I’m half-sold on the idea.
The other half would come from personal experience.
First, I’m from the late state, and didn’t get a license until 17 (it was changed to 18 shortly thereafter). Honestly, it didn’t really change my high school years. The major differences between my junior year in high school self, and my senior year in high school self was that I no longer needed to walk or depend on a ride to work, I had more money in my pocket (no needing to buy gas) and my friend’s and I had to go to closer by diners. Not the end of the world.
I also speak from personal experience when it comes to 16-year-olds driving. See, I’m an early riser and come in around 7:30 a.m., which means I leave work around the same time high schoolers are in their prime time of driving around, and let me tell you sometimes it’s scary. Now of course all 16-year-olds aren’t bad drivers, it’s just that they don’t quite always have enough life experience, or know enough about consequences. Perfect example, that I’ve read a bunch of times in the police reports, they speed home to avoid being late for a 10 p.m. curfew. Instead of just leaving somewhere early, or calling their parents, they’ll bail down Hwy. 10 doing 80. Just not the safest.
And the argument that parents want the age to stay 16 so their kids can drive themselves to soccer practice, or help with chores, I’m sorry when I say this, kids are a parent’s responsibility until they are 18. I’m pretty sure most people knew this ahead of time, so even though it’s nice for them to be able to run to the store and pick up milk, just ask them to take their bike. And really, how have they been getting to soccer practice up until this point?
But, I realize I’m somewhat jaded on this issue. I’ve only experienced it one way. So I want to hear from other people, what’s a good driving age? Should it stay where it is, or get boosted a few more years?
I think it should remain at 16 with a little longer time spent behind the wheel with a responsible guardian next to the new driver. While 16 year olds can be a bit erratic in their driving habits, I don’t think that 17 or 18 will fix the problem any. What we would end up seeing would be a group of slightly older individuals with less driving experience as they hit their 18th and then 21st birthdays.
As far as how they are getting around — well, not everyone in the state (or anywhere else for that matter) can walk or bike everywhere they need to go. I was a swimmer and the location that I trained at was 15 miles away by car and reachable only by car. It had already been a great hardship on my parents to drive me there for the 6 years prior and by raising the age would have just added to the sacrifices they had to make to get me to/from practice.
While I don’t think we should change the 16 year old age limit, I have no problems limiting young drivers’ late night driving abilities as I had to be home by 9 PM until I was 18 anyway.
*shrug*
I don’t know the magic number, but 16 is really too young to have full driving rights. AT MINIMUM there should be a much more limited graduated drivers license than we have currently, and I would definitely support raising the permit age to 16 and the driving age to 17.
There is a world of difference between a 15 year old and an 18 year old, even if the 18 y/o has zero driving experience they have 113% the life experience of a 15y/0. Their maturity level is much higher (albeit still fairly low in most cases).
My 18 y/0 has yet to get her DL – because I told her she had to pay for the classes herself and she’s had other priorities – and she cannot imagine why we let 15 y/o kids behind the wheel.
Smart kid!