Adrian Lund, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a research group funded by the auto insurance industry, acknowledged the idea is "a tough sell," but noted that car crashes are the leading cause of death among teenagers.
"The bottom line is that when we look at the research, raising the driving age saves lives," Lund said.
He plans to present the proposal Tuesday at the annual conference of the Governors Highway Safety Association in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Not surprisingly, a lot of teens hate the idea.
*****
Two things wrong with the 'logic' behind this:
First the 'research' was done by the insurance companies or done for with with their funding.
Second the numbers are skewed but will not remain so because the baby boomers and the baby boomer's children are all driving now and the number of teenagers driving is actually decreasing instead of increasing as it has for the last half century.
Now, this is not to say it isn't a good idea to rethink the age which we allow someone to drive but the reasons they are using are not what should be a 'deciding' factor.
The best solution would be to train drivers better ... some people driving today haven't a clue as to what they are doing and it makes the roads that much more dangerous.
An example of this is when some 45 year old from New York city comes to North Carolina and gets a drivers permit having never before driven a car then tells everyone that North Carolinians who have been driving for years (some of my generation since they were 8 or 9 and drove farm equipment around and 11 or 12 when they started driving cars, the 'legal' age is 16 but tell that to the farmers), can not drive.
What is so funny about that is around here when you pass a wrecked car in a ditch or flipped over it has one of three plates on the back of it ... New York, New Jersey, or Ohio - and WE can't drive?
So, age has little to do with the ability to drive a car until later in life when the motor skills and reaction to situations time begins to slow.
Better trained drivers would be much more of a help in saving lives - some teens are more capable than others just as some adults are more capable than others.
First the 'research' was done by the insurance companies or done for with with their funding.
Second the numbers are skewed but will not remain so because the baby boomers and the baby boomer's children are all driving now and the number of teenagers driving is actually decreasing instead of increasing as it has for the last half century.
Now, this is not to say it isn't a good idea to rethink the age which we allow someone to drive but the reasons they are using are not what should be a 'deciding' factor.
The best solution would be to train drivers better ... some people driving today haven't a clue as to what they are doing and it makes the roads that much more dangerous.
An example of this is when some 45 year old from New York city comes to North Carolina and gets a drivers permit having never before driven a car then tells everyone that North Carolinians who have been driving for years (some of my generation since they were 8 or 9 and drove farm equipment around and 11 or 12 when they started driving cars, the 'legal' age is 16 but tell that to the farmers), can not drive.
What is so funny about that is around here when you pass a wrecked car in a ditch or flipped over it has one of three plates on the back of it ... New York, New Jersey, or Ohio - and WE can't drive?
So, age has little to do with the ability to drive a car until later in life when the motor skills and reaction to situations time begins to slow.
Better trained drivers would be much more of a help in saving lives - some teens are more capable than others just as some adults are more capable than others.
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