An Argumentative Essay on Raising the Legal Driving Age

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Raising the Legal Driving Age Getting a driver’s license is one of the major milestones in most teenager’s lives. Having the ability to get behind the wheel of a car gives young people a great sense of maturity and independence. But, is ok in today’s society to allow that sense of maturity at such a young age? Right now, in the state of Virginia, teens can get their learners permit at age 15 and have their driver’s license by the age of 16 with only six behind-the-wheel hours of supervised experience (DMV, 2015). In a fast moving world that is much different than just 20 years ago, only having six hours in a little more than a year’s worth of time behind the wheel before being able to receive a license is just not enough. There are more distractions that drivers have to deal with and young drivers should be required to have more supervised driving experience before being licensed. There are some people, however, that would disagree. But when faced with some facts on the matter, it will become clearer that the driving age limit needs to be reevaluated. Several ideas such as more distractions in the form of technology in the car and on the road, a lack of maturity and experience, and the fact that young people are more likely to be in a fatal car accident are all valid reason to raise the legal driving age. Some people do not believe age plays a factor in the ability to drive a vehicle by themselves without adult supervision. In a high school newspaper, Nowak (2004) said that “Raising the driving age would just make inexperienced drivers older and would solve nothing” (as cited by Yee, 2004). This is a good point, however, it is shown that the leading cause of death for 15-20 year olds is, in fact, auto accidents (Insurance Information Institute, 2015). Now why is this? Could it be that much has changed since the making of these laws and it is no longer safe

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