Essay - Minimum Driving AGE PDF

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The essay rebutted the suggestion to increase the minimum age of driving to 21 years old by ...

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It cannot be argued that the issue of road traffic accidents is a global public health concern. This is evident from the statistics released by the World Health Organization which showed that more than 1.25 million people die each year as a result of road traffic accidents worldwide with 20 to 50 million more people suffer from various non-fatal injuries resulting to temporary or permanent disability. As the number of road traffic accidents continues to increase from one year to another, the issue of legal driving age has been a constant debate and every few years another log is thrown onto the fire by those who believed that the minimum driving age should be raised in an attempt to curb or reduce the road traffic accident occurrences. As the situation currently stands, 17-year-old is the minimum driving age in Malaysia while the majority of other countries set their legal driving age to be between 16 to 18 years old. It is now under a heated discussion whether licenses should only be provided to those of 18-years or 21years and older in order to reduce the amount of deaths resulting from dangerous driving. Will increasing the minimum driving age make our roads any safer? I personally think that the minimum driving age should be maintained as raising it does not guarantee the rate of road accidents can be lowered while it also contributes to the increase of interdependency of teenagers to their parents, an increase in the illegal driving cases, as well as the fact that attitude, not age, matter when driving. Increasing the minimum driving age does not necessarily mean the rate of road accidents involving teen drivers can be lowered. According to the Annual United States Road Crash Statistics released by the Association for Safe International Road Travel, from the average annual road crash fatality of 37,000 people reported in the United States, only 8,000 involved teen drivers of age between 15 to 20 years old. While many claimed that there is a significant increase in the number of road accidents involving teen drivers, it is important to understand that the main reason contributing to this increase is due to the lack of driving experiences that these teen drivers have and not due to their age. This is emphasized by the findings of a research carried out by Monash University that studied the influence of age-related and experience-related factors on reported driving behavior and accidents. The research concluded that experience deficit plays a major role in crash causation among inexperienced drivers especially teen drivers and that age has little effect on this matter. This is explained by Insurance Information Institute which states that since teen drivers are new drivers, their lack of experiences in driving affect their recognition of and response to hazardous situations thus leading to dangerous practices such as

tailgating and speeding. It can therefore be concluded that all new drivers are likely to have an accident for the exact same reason too regardless of whether the driver is an adult or a teen due to their lack of driving experiences. It should be kept in mind that driving a car is a complex skill requiring coordinated movements, knowledge, and an integration of numerous types of perceptual information. Like any skilled behavior, practice is necessary for mastery, and mistakes are made more frequently in the early phases of learning than in latter phases (Kelso, 1982). While the road may be safe by not allowing these teen drivers to drive when they were 16 or 17, they still would be potentially dangerous to the other road users once they are allowed to drive at the age of 18 or 21 due to their zero practical experience in driving. Therefore, regardless of the minimum driving age, accident rates involving new drivers will still be the same even if the minimum driving age is increase as these drivers are still inexperience and in the learning process. In addition, driving license is also a necessity for teenagers to allow them to be less depending on their parents. This is due to the fact that we have created a nation where driving is essential. Not all teens have access to an effective public transportation system especially those living in less developed areas where public transportation is not an option for daily commuting. For these teens, driving license is important to enable them to commute to work, school, or any other places independently without having to rely on their working parents. In fact, according to the statistics released by United States Census, more than 1 in 4 high school students age 16 and above work part-time which represented more than 3 million workers nationwide. Possessing a car license is therefore important for these working teens as they may be required to make trips across town or from one area to another for their job. Not only that teenagers need to be independent from their parents at some point. If they have to wait until they are 21 to get a driving license, they remain dependent on their parents practically until they are adults. Do we really want to chauffeur our kids everywhere, up until the point they graduate high school, go off to college, or even join the military? In addition, Taylor (2010) argues that driving, among others, is one of the first steps taken by teenagers into adulthood as it enables these teens to take control of their own freedom to live their life independently. He further argues that enabling teens to drive allow them to be responsible and accountable for their own action and decision which are the two important elements in adulthood. This is further emphasized by Oster (2017)

who believes that driving is an important milestone that allows teenagers to transition from childhood into adulthood independently. Besides that, increasing the minimum driving age may also lead to an increase in the illegal driving cases reported around the country. Most teenagers are rebellious in nature. Pickhardtt (2009) argues that the two most common forms of teen rebellion are against socially fitting in and against adult authority or also known as rebellion of non-compliance. He further elaborates that teens proudly assert individuality from what the adults want in an attempt to provoke their disapproval. Rebellion can cause them to reject safe rules and restraints set upon them including the increase in minimum driving age. By restricting those teenagers from obtaining a driving license, this may triggered their rebellious trait resulting to them disobeying such restriction. This may lead to an increase in the cases of driving without a valid license thus posing more harm to the other road users. Moreover, as discussed above, teens who need to commute to school and workplace may also resort to driving illegally without having a valid license if the minimum driving age is raised. This is because, driving for many of the teenagers in today’s world is no longer a privilege but a necessity especially for those who are located away from the metropolitan cities with almost none accessible public transportation services. In addition, police officers will have more workloads to deal with. More time and effort need to be invested by these police officers in curbing the problem which may be troublesome to the other road users. Roadblocks for an example would result to a massive traffic jammed which may affect other road users as well. Last but not least, a person’s ability to drive well is not influenced by age but the attitude the driver assumed while driving. Again, this is reiterated in the findings of the research carried out by Monash University which concluded that age-related factors have little effect on the reported driving behavior and accidents involving teen drivers. Carelessness for an example is not depending on the age of a person. In fact, Williams (2010) believes that new drivers are likely to be more cautious than experienced ones and pay more attention to what they are doing since they are still in the learning process. Moreover, the leading cause of road accidents, as reported by the United States National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, is distracted drivers whereby between 25 to 50 percent of all road crashes in the United States are directly related to driver distraction as the root cause of those crashes. These distractions include texting,

rubbernecking, or slowing down to observe another accident which together, account for almost 16 percent of all distraction-related cases. From this, we can conclude that the leading cause of road accidents is not in any way related to the age of the drivers but rather the attitude assumed while driving. It is therefore important to reiterate that dangerous drivers can be found across the generations and not just amongst young drivers. While there should be a fixed age to learn, there should not be a fixed age to a license. Different people mature at different ages, some may be earlier and some may be later than others, which is why raising the legal driving age is not an effective decision in reducing the number of road accidents. That being said, I strongly believe that the driving age should not be increased. How much difference will increasing the legal driving age to 18 or 21 make if there is no guarantee that those 18-or 21-years-old drivers will never find themselves in the same situation that 17years-olds are in now? Instead of increasing the driving age for teenagers to curb the problem of road accidents, the modules for the driver's test should be revised and enhanced by including an aptitude test which examines how the candidate responds to certain hazardous situations on road while driving, and assess this respond based on whether or not it is rooted in responsibility, not to mention a concern for the people on the road who may be involved.. Besides that, the government should also introduce a training program which could provide teen drivers as well as all other new drivers the necessary exposure and practical experience that they need apart from the one taught in driving classes to increase their readiness and maturity on the road. All parties should continue to emphasize safe driving to teens, and all other drivers for that matter, but leave the legal driving age as it is for the sake of all.

LIST OF REFERENCES 1 in 4 high school students work, U.S. Census finds. (2015). NewsOK.com. Retrieved 20 November 2017, from http://newsok.com/article/3748886 Annual Global Road Crash Statistics. (2017). Retrieved 20 November 2017, from http://asirt.org/initiatives/informing-road-users/road-safety-facts/road-crash-statistics Background On: Teen drivers. (2017). Iii.org. Retrieved 20 November 2017, from https://www.iii.org/issue-update/background-on-teen-drivers Distracted Driving. (2017). Retrieved 20 November 2017, from https://www.nhtsa.gov/riskydriving/distracted-driving Oster, J. (2017). Reasons That Teenagers Should Be Able to Drive. Livestrong.com. Retrieved 22 November 2017, from https://www.livestrong.com/article/1006549-reasons-teenagers-shouldable-drive/ Pickhardt, C. (2009). Rebel with a Cause: Rebellion in Adolescence. Psychology Today. Retrieved 20 November 2017, from https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/surviving-yourchilds-adolescence/200912/rebel-cause-rebellion-in-adolescence Road traffic injuries. (2017). Retrieved 20 November 2017, from http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs358/en/ Taylor, J. (2010). Raise Independent Children. Psychology Today. Retrieved 20 November 2017, from https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-power-prime/201011/parenting-raiseindependent-children Williams, D. (2010). Driving skills: are older drivers better than young ones?. Telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 20 November 2017, from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/roadsafety/7092869/Driving-skills-are-older-drivers-better-than-young-ones.html Young Driver Research Program - The influence of age-related andexperience-related factors on reported driving behaviour and crashes - Accident Research Centre. (2017). Monash University. Retrieved 22 November 2017, from http://www.monash.edu/muarc/research/ourpublications/atsb143...