The driving age should be raised or requirements for a license should be changed - Essay Example

It is said that a sixteen-year-old teenager is not mature enough to be allowed to drive and while some people might think it sounds unfair, it has been biologically proven. The frontal cortex in the human brain is responsible for motor skills, risk taking, problem solving and emotional maturity. While lack of experience might be blamed as a cause of road accidents by teenage drivers, emotional maturity is the major reason why teenagers make bad drivers. There is a process called the spreading of white matter from the back to the front of the brain which helps in effective communication between brain cells, a process that usually takes place when one attains the age of twenty and continues until one is around thirty years of age (Gillin).

It is clearly visible from this fact that a teenager’s brain does not have the capacity needed to make urgent and important decisions when driving. An adult’s brain can be able to switch on fast when an emergency occurs on the road while he is driving, for example, when a kid decided to rush to the road, thus saving a life. Teenagers are also more of risk takers, which become a problem when they are on the road, combined with emotional immaturity being a risk taker serves as a big problem as they will want to put themselves in situations that will be difficult to handle.

While I am not advocating that the driving age be changed to mid 20’s to allow for maturity, a middle ground can be reached by raising the age from sixteen to eighteen to reduce the cases of teenage motor accidents (Bjorklund and Blasi 473). Statistics show that car crashes are the number one cause of death among teenagers in the U.S and those between sixteen and nineteen years of age were more likely to be involved in serious and fatal accidents than those aged twenty years and above. The former age had an estimated 2700 deaths and 282,000 casualties in the year 2010.

It is also interesting to note that death was recorded more among male drivers of the said age group as compared to female drivers. There were also increased chances when the passenger was a teenager and in the first six months of being given a driving license. Moreover, 56% of interviewed teenagers admitted to answering mobile phones and 13% said that they are used to sending and responding to text messages while driving and a further 17% admitted that speeding was fun while driving (“Teen Drivers Facts…”).

Some of the reasons noted as to why teens were more likely to be at risk, most of those involved in accidents at the time had been drinking and or speeding therefore resulting in fatal accidents and even death. In addition, most of the teenagers are unable to recognize dangerous situations and therefore end up taking risks that are life threatening and for those who already find themselves in such situations are not able to act fast as to prevent any forthcoming accidents. Some teenagers do not follow the rules of the road, one very important rule is to give enough space or headway between your car and the one in front of you therefore ensuring that you can see the road well and reduce chances of a crash in case the car ahead of you gets involved in one or brakes suddenly.