Legal driving age

[Aikman_TheGreat]

i think it should be 16 and a half. im still in high school and 90% of the wrecks are the 15, 16- early 17 year olds flying through the parking lot or whatever. there should defintely be a limit on age. no way i feel safe anywhere in the lot with sophmore and juniors driving around. not to mention alot of wrecks are from women that dont know what the hell there doing

So should it be a sex thing too? I dont know about that.

You say 15, 16, and 17 year olds get in wrecks, what about the older people who do? I dont think age has anything to do with it. I think its people who dont know what the heck they are doing or are not paying attention.

Wrecks happen because 1. people cant drive 2. they dont pay attention. Other than that, freak accidents.

[garnett_21]

i think it should be 16 and a half. im still in high school and 90% of the wrecks are the 15, 16- early 17 year olds flying through the parking lot or whatever. there should defintely be a limit on age. no way i feel safe anywhere in the lot with sophmore and juniors driving around. not to mention alot of wrecks are from women that dont know what the hell there doing

That's not a good attitude to have - it won't go very far at all. And, surveys/tests have shown that young men (16-24) are the cause for the highest percentage of accidents. I believe young women are third, if I'm remembering correctly, with older people (65+, both sexes) being in the middle.

[meloman315]

i think old people should just not be allowed to drive or have to retake the test at a certain age.

on the women thing, i see more women plow into parked cars and speeding through the parking lot then anything else...just saying

[themanishere]

And, surveys/tests have shown that young men (16-24) are the cause for the highest percentage of accidents. I believe young women are third, if I'm remembering correctly, with older people (65+, both sexes) being in the middle.

This.

I think the OP is projecting his personal experience onto the issue - you're talking about people who are around cars constantly, which is not the case for a majority of the population who would get their license at a said age. [Ex: not every kid is going to be in a racing league or drive vehicles around their backyard, and to base an argument for lowering the age on that is really only making a case for the exception rather than the rule]

To make the driving age even younger, you're presenting a whole new means of accidents. Teens [but really you're getting into adolescent age here] do not have the same awareness - they don't have the sense of the world not revolving around them to the degree other people have, as far as being aware on the road. Younger people don't multitask well either, which is what you have to do a lot when you drive. The "normal" (sadly) mistakes people make while driving (texting, eating, music/radio, etc) would be magnified with younger people because they are more easily distracted.

I think there's a false sense of thinking that kids are mature because they are being exposed to more at a younger age these days. That doesn't make them mature, that just morphs their socialization.

[WantToTrade]

From personal ecperience I've seen way more young people in accidents and way more men in accidents. A few of them have passed at the age of 15-20. I think it has more to do with partying and just not paying attention. The only women I've seen in accidents was my mother for trying to chase me for disobeying her and my aunt because of icy road. i've been the passenger in a drunk driving accident with one of my boys. One of my other boys was killed in an accident trying to run from the cops after a fight broke out at a party. Another close frined of mine was killed in a head on collison that left another kid I knew in a wheelchair. Another Kid I knew was drunk driving at 15 years old and killed everyone in he car excpept him. The list goes on. I almost got nailed the other day by from some guy flying through a yield sign of highway merging into the highway I was on. What we need to do is come up with a new source of transportation and infrastructure that minimizes the collision domain. The technology to engineer some kind of artificial intelligence for cars to avoid accidents cant be that far.

[WilyWestbrook0]

Missouri has a mandatory driving test, and it's very well-done. I passed it on my third attempt. They make you drive downtown for about 15-20 minutes in addition to testing parking, turn signal use, etc.

My greatest concern is actually elderly drivers. I think after the age of 60, tests need to be given to them to see if their reaction time is good enough. One older lady literally blocked four lanes a few weeks ago because she couldn't make a decision to keep crossing or not even though she initially had ample time to do so (eventually, that time ran out as cars came across and honked at her because she was blocking their space). And last week, I was behind an older guy who was doing about 20 MPH in a busy 60 MPH zone.

[theonedru]

Regardless of age you should have to take a written/driving test yearly, and if you get more than 2 questions wrong you should be stripped of your license. I am just sick of the ignorant drivers who have no clue about anything, daily i see red light runners, yellow light runners, people driving over crosswalks with pedestrians in them, speeders, ect. I am so sick of them all.

[Glebe]

its not a skill thing, its maturity..younger kids wil ldo anything to impress friends and girls.

[GriffeyJr.FAN3]

i say bump the driving age to 18 and lower the drinking age to 18. nothing would make me more happy haha

[abradley08]

Well as my uncle would say "if you can drink then you can drive"