Teen Drivers - Essay Example

Attention! Teens at the Wheel: Why Should the Driving Age Be Raised? During the teenage years, everything is about being independent, getting freedom, and feeling and behaving like an adult. Today, teens have an opportunity to bring these plans to life as at the age of sixteen they can have their driving licenses. At the wheel, many of them try to execute their freedom, and, unfortunately, in many cases, such an experience ends tragically as they have car accidents, get injured or even die. As teenagers are the age group that accounts for the greatest number of casualties in motor vehicle accidents, there is a great necessity to increase the driving age to 18 or even 20-21 when adolescents are developed and responsible enough to be in charge of their lives and lives of other people on the road. First of all, to prove that the driving age should be raised at least to 18 (21 is better though), it is necessary to study the statistical data on the issue. The data presented by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention perfectly explains the necessity to raise the driving age. The matter is that the main cause of death of teenagers in the United States is motor vehicle crashes. This fact is terrible but the statistical data is even worse. Only in one year, more than 2,500 teenagers aged 16-19 died and about 290,000 were injured in car accidents in the United States (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). Overall, as it follows from the figures, young people aged 16-19 are most at risk of getting in motor vehicle crashes than people aged 20 and over. One of the factors that determine teenagers’ inability to drive safely and the higher risk to get into motor vehicle accidents is their physiological and psychological development. Very often, this factor is referred to as the health paradox of the adolescence. Despite the fact that adolescence appears to be the healthiest period of life of every human being, the rates of mortality and morbidity during this period increase by 200 percent from early childhood to late adolescence. The main reason for this is that teenagers lack the ability to control their emotions and behavior. During adolescence, there is a wide range of psychological, physiological, and environmental factors which influence behavior and the process of decision making in teenagers. One of the most influential of them is the changes in the endocrine profile, which affect mood, emotions, and motivation. As a result, there appears a tendency towards sensation- and novelty-seeking as well as risk-taking (National Research Council, Institute of Medicine, and Transportation Research Board 16-17). Putting it into simpler words, teenagers are at greater risk of getting into car accidents because their endocrine system does not allow them to control their behavior to full extent. In addition to this, it is the development of the brain in adolescence that influences teenagers’ ability to drive properly. In particular, in accordance with the research published by the National Institute of Mental Health, it is the spread of white matter in the brain, which is the process that allows brain cells communicate in an effective way. In adolescence, the amount of produced brain cells is enough but the mechanism of their processing is not developed yet. Starting with the age 20 and up till about 30, white matter spreads from the back of the brain and in the end reaches the frontal lobe of the brain, which is responsible for emotional maturity and motor skills. From this, it follows that teenager’s frontal lobe lacks white matter; consequently, teens are more likely to speed, lose control of vehicles and not to follow traffic signs. What is more, teenagers’ prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for performance of multiple tasks at one time, is not fully developed (National Institute of Mental Health). This means that teens are distracted more easily. One more factor that influences teenagers while driving is lack of sleep. In his article titled Lack of Sleep Disrupts Teen Driving, Rick Nauert, PhD, describes the study which shows that sleep deprivation tends to increase the risk of car crashes for adolescents. The respondents of the study were students aged from 18 to 21, who were asked about symptoms of sleep disorders, lifestyle habits, and sleep habits. In accordance with the described research, teen drivers were twice likely to get into a motor vehicle accident if they lacked sleep or felt sleepy while driving (Nauert). Today, many teenagers are chronically short of sleep, which also adds to the number of motor vehicle accidents in their age group (National Research Council, Institute of Medicine, and Transportation Research Board 21). Also, accordingly to National Research Council, Institute of Medicine, and Transportation Research Board, “peer interactions often make risky behaviors more likely” (20). It is with peers that adolescents tend to initiate risky activities: about a quarter of all death in the United States result from risky behaviors ignited by peers. The matter is that teenagers are more likely to engage into thrill-seeking activities because of their need for social acceptance. Very often, adolescents operate the vehicle and try to stay attuned to interactions between the peers in the car; they engage in multitasking and usually fail as the development of their brain does not allow performing several tasks at once successfully. The issue of changing the driving age at least to 18 is raised for the number of teens getting injured and dying in motor vehicle accidents is becoming unprecedented. The opponents to the raise of driving age are mostly teens themselves and their parents, i. e. those who want to get freedom from either supervision or responsibilities. However, they do not consider the fact that teens are not developed enough, both physically and psychologically, to enhance in such a responsible activity. Often, such carelessness is what leads to the point of no return. Life is a high price to pay for being independent, and it is better to wait for two years more to be surer that nothing is going to happen on the road. Works Cited Centers For Disease Control and Prevention. "Teen Drivers: Get the Facts." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. CDC, 7 Oct 2014. Web. 29 Nov 2014. . National Institute of Mental Health. "The Adolescent Brain. Why Teenagers Think and Act Differently." EDinformatics. N.p.. Web. 29 Nov 2014. . National Research Council, Institute of Medicine, and Transportation Research Board. Preventing Teen Motor Crashes. Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2007. Print. Nauert, R. "Lack of Sleep Disrupts Teen Driving."PsychCentral. N.p., 17 Feb 2010. Web. 29 Nov 2014. . Read More