Should The Legal Driving Age Be Raised?

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Janet Camacho (Davis) – COM 101 - 11:00am (M,W,) Should the legal driving age be raised from 16 to 18? INTRODUCTION ATTENTION GETTING DEVICE: It was a late rainy Sat. night June 7, 2003 Bradley and his friend Keith were passengers in a car driven by another teen driving to fast. The sheriff's dept. estimated her speed to be 70-85 mph in a 45 mph zone. At around 11:30pm the driver lost control going into a curve on William Few Parkway in Appling Georgia. The car slid sideways over 265 ft. slammed into a tree, spun around up an incline and caught fire. Bradley and Keith died in the fire. I was never told of any attempts to get them out. Bradley had 10 broken ribs and mutiple internal injuries, Keith had no injuries. We only pray they both were unconsious at the time. The driver lived with only minor injuries. The driver was already breaking the law by having passengers in the first 6 months of having a license. She only had her license 11 days. Thankfully this isn’t my story. It was taken from a website created in memory of Bradley Taylor Thornton by his parents. This is just one grim example of why the driving age needs to be raised to 18. THESIS STATEMENT: For the safety of our teens we need to raise the unrestricted legal driving age to 18 years old. BODY I. Young and immature drivers have the most and possibly the worst vehicle accidents. In fact, according to the center for disease control, Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for U.S. teens, accounting for more than one in three deaths in this age group. In 2009, eight teens ages 16 to 19 died every day from motor vehicle injuries. A. I’m going to share with you just a few of teen fatality statistics that hit a little closer to home. 1. An article from lasvegasnow.com states there’s been over 300 teens killed on our roads over the past few years.
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