Should the legal driving age be raised?
When my kids look at me with intense anger and inform me that times are so different than they were when I was a teenager, I look at them, wanting to snap back with something snarky and memorable – but I always realize – they’re right! Teens are very different now than when I was a kid. They’re far more ignorant when it comes to decision making – thinking before they act and much more risky than I remember my friends and I being.
I can’t tell you how many times I encounter a fly by driver when driving down the road and the majority of times it’s a kid with a car full of friends.
“Anytime you have immaturity combined with inexperience, you have the potential for disaster,” says Nicole Nason, head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. “And that’s what you get with a 16-year-old behind the wheel.”
As I watch my twins, now 15, I see, almost daily, examples of blatant immaturity that are preventing me from even considering a learner’s permit.
My son has a Go Kart he rides around the parameter of our property. The one rule we had for this particular privilege was that he was not to ride on the road side of our ditch.
While watching from the window shortly after he got the vehicle running, I saw him take a whirl around the yard – in shock, I watched as he blatantly disobeyed the one rule I had.
The Go Kart is currently sitting near that same road with a nice, bright “For Sale” sign hung on the front.
I have to wonder, when I see kids flying down the road going at mach speeds or see them attempting to text while driving, just what rules they may be breaking that’s placing them at risk of breaking their parents heart.
Kids today seem so entitled – so spoiled and so willing to break rules, disobey laws and take terrifying risks.
The goal of graduated driver licensing laws, would impose restrictions before teens earn a full license. An ideal law would set the minimum age for a permit at 16, limit passengers to one, ban cell phones, prohibit driving between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m., and not allow a full license until age 18.
Where do I sign up?
I don’t believe that just because a teen turns sixteen that some sort of switch in their brains flips on maturity and ability to drive responsibly.
I struggle a great deal with the idea of allowing my kids to have their learner permit – mostly because I don’t want to agree to punish the mistake as it happens only to find that the mistake ends up being far too costly.
How do parents come to terms with the whole driving experience? When do you know it’s time to allow your kids to drive? And what rules do you have in place that may ensure your kids are following your rules without breaking them?
(image: stock.xchg)
