So...brain function isn't "mature" yet, and this may account for the higher accident rate.
Now...if we don't start people driving until they are 18, they'll still be inexperienced "novice" drivers (and thus somewhat more dangerous), but maybe their brains will, on average, be "more mature" and better able to assess risk?
Hmm...as an old fart, this idea has a certain appeal. I remember being 15 1/2, though, and I think I probably would've prayed for the violent death of who ever suggested this if it'd happened back in my day.
posted
I'd be interested in your thoughts on the article. As an experimental psychologist, I have an opinion, but I'd rather not bias the discussion just yet. Does the brain research sound relevant and credible?
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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posted
Here we have a graduated license program, and you can't have your full operator's until 18 anyway.
Posts: 3636 | Registered: Oct 2001
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posted
My mom thought so. Now I am 21, didn't get my license till I was 20, and am still not comfortable driving, and prefer my husband to drive whenever possible. (I will drive in an emergency or when I can't get somewhere I need to be any other way, but now that we live walking distance from the train station...)
I will let my kids drive at 16 if I think they are responsible enough.
posted
I think, instead of making the driving age higher for those that are too immature to drive yet, how about just make the test hard enough that those that are still too immature wouldn't be able to pass it while the ones that are mature enough will be able too That way everyone doesn't get punished for the immature ones Edit: This was written partially tongue in cheek but it's not such a bad idea is it?
I started driving at 17, only after I'd passed a comprehensive AAA defensive driving course, which, IMO, was the best money my parents ever spent. I still habitually use the things I learned in that course and I know it made me a better driver than I would have otherwise been.
So, I'd say 16/17 is still okay, but I really think it's something that should be *taught* fully, by professionals. Not just Mom or Dad teaching on the weekends.
edited to add that I am looking forward to my son being old enough to drive. He's a careful kid by nature, so I have few worries about him once he's learned how. And it will be nice to have an extra driver in the house.
posted
In MN, if you're under 18 you can't get your license without taking a professional class, including classroom and behind the wheel training. And you can't drive with your permit with your parents until after you've got a certainly amount of the behind the wheel part completed. I think it's a pretty good system.
I didn't get my license until I was 17, though, and my mom threatened me. Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
Yeah, the wackiest part of the way they do drivers’ ed in Iowa is that they expect you to have been practicing driving with your parents before you take drivers’ ed. I totally don’t understand that. In MN you’re expected to learn how to drive with the professional instructors, and then practice with your parents before you take the test.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
I've thought about this some more and get stuck on this quote:
quote: "We have parents who are pretty much tired of chauffeuring their kids around, and they want their children to be able to drive," he says. "Driving is a very emotional issue."
That's a very real issue, not just of convenience, in many cases. I have the misfortune to live somewhere where having a car is pretty much a neccessity, much to my chagrin. If you want a job, you have to be willing to drive 30 miles to get it. When I was in high school I worked nights at a restaurant in the nearest major town - 35 miles away. Frankly, I don't know what my parents were thinking, but my other option was not to work.
The problem here boils down to our dependence on cars. Really - it's absurd how much we use our cars. We drive because we have to, but we have to only because everyone else drives. There's no demand for public transportation and that really takes its toll on the lower classes. If my family didn't have to pay for auto upkeep and gas, we'd be a little more able to survive financially. As it stands, if we want to make money we have to drive everywhere, and I hate it. Long-distance trips for me in college required taking the Greyhound, and I had a couple rather scary run-ins because, though the system exists, it's stigmatized to the point that it really is convicts and thugs who utilize it. And the low demand makes it expensive as well.
I live in a state crisscrossed by railroad tracks that reach nearly every town, but since the advent of semitrucks and the drop in demand for rail transport, they've fallen into disrepair and now the trains that can use them have to do so very slowly. We had this huge existing infrastructure and it's gone totally to waste. So now, we all spend our income on huge machines and fossil fuels and kill each other on a regular basis just trying to get around. It's ridiculous.
Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
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posted
I lived in Alberta when I got my learner's permit at 14 and driver's license at 16. Yep, 14! Thing is, it's a farming province, and most farm kids, like Annie said, have been driving everything from cars & trucks to tractors & combines on the family farm since they were 8 or 10.
You can still get a learner's permit there at 14 - my niece just got hers. Don't know if they've changed the system at all or if it's exactly the same as it was back in my day. Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote: There's no demand for public transportation and that really takes its toll on the lower classes.
I am really glad, as I've said before, that I live within easy walking distance (about 1/2 a mile) of the nearest train station. And the train system in Dallas is pretty awesome-- clean, efficient, and goes where I want to. It also connects directly with the bus system, which is also not that bad, especially compared to LA, where I grew up. The reason we are able to be a one-car family and still have Jeff work the hours that he needs to is because I am perfectly willing to walk or ride public transportation where I need to; the train even stops right by Emma's doctor's office, and we have stores in easy walking distance. If I need to go to church or something, my mother-in-law is almost always going as well and willing to pick us up. Honestly, I am thrilled that I hardly ever need to drive.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
I get my permit in a little more than 3 months! Woo! I say, if they can pass the test at 16, why not give them their licsence? It makes no sense.
Posts: 1401 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
I live out here in the sticks....the closest "big city", I think, is Nashville, which is over a hundred miles away. I can't imagine any financial incentive being great enough to meaningfully extend public transport all the way out here.
Besides, poor or not, I like being able to go where I want, when I want, instead of having to sit around waiting for a bus. I've discovered that driving around--even just to the next town--is almost as exhilarating as reading a good book. It's a feeling of freedom, and it's lasted for almost three years now. (I suppose it will go away eventually.)
I don't really think a "good feeling" is worth major environmental damage. But if other people feel the same way I do, it's probably too addictive to pry them away from at this late date.
Posts: 1114 | Registered: Mar 2004
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quote: You can still get a learner's permit there at 14 - my niece just got hers. Don't know if they've changed the system at all or if it's exactly the same as it was back in my day
When I was in grade 8 (I think that was in 1997) they passed a law changing it from 14/16 to 16/18. However, the law wont go into effect until the kids born that year turn 14 (at which time they have to wait until they're 16 to get the permit). Atleast this is how it was explained to me by a police guest-speaker in my Science class (I can't remember why the lady was talking about the driving age in a science class).
I also got my license in Alberta. I got my permit and my license when I turned 17. I didn't drive hardly at all until a few months later when I passed an AMA (Alberta Motor Association) class. That way my insurance would be reasonable.
Posts: 14 | Registered: Feb 2005
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Nitin Gogtay, Jay N. Giedd, Leslie Lusk, Kiralee M. Hayashi, Deanna Greenstein, A. Catherine Vaituzis, Tom F. Nugent, III, David H. Herman, Liv S. Clasen, Arthur W. Toga, Judith L. Rapoport, and Paul M. Thompson Dynamic mapping of human cortical development during childhood through early adulthood PNAS 2004 101: 8174-8179
It looks like the most recent thing Giedd has published (that appears even marginally relevent.)
posted
Having been the victim of two 16-year olds (the first ran a red light going about 20 over the 25 mph speed limit - already on high risk insurance, and this was her third accident; and the second was a 16-year old driving mommy's red hot corvette too fast off a freeway exit and around a very tight merge into a major roadway - with divorced daddy IN the car - and jumped a barrier and hit me head-on where I was stopped at a red light minding my own business; and then as the victim of an 80 year old woman backing out of her driveway who apparently decided that even those I was over two feet off the road with three half-pint kids with me, I still made an appealing target as her personal speedbump) I willingly admit that I have some pretty significant bias about driving ages - on BOTH ends of the spectrum. *scowls*
As far as I am concerned, the only people that should be allowed to drive is the parent who is primarily responsible for transporting kids from home to school, child care, sports, music lessons, doctors, church activities, griocery stores, sleep-overs, last-minute "I gotta have", "Honey, please get . . . " etc., etc.
Everyone else should walk, bike, and demand adequate public transportation.
/end pipe dream
Hmphhh.
And farm kids can continue driving - when I lived in Wyoming, the dangerous kid drivers were the ones that hadn't grown up learning to operate and respect moving vehicles. Kinda like guns, eh?
posted
Changing it to 18 years of age would severely hurt farming communities.
I can understand not having or wanting kids to drive until 18 in suburban areas where there ARE other choices, like public transportation, or walking, or bicycling. But in wide open farm areas, it would be a major problem for many families.
Especially farm families who have their kids help with harvest. Usually there is no other traffic on the road (except other harvest traffic) in these areas, and I think it is a good place for young drivers to grow in experience.
My kids drive in the country all the time. I'm still not comfortable letting the younger ones (17 and 15) drive in the city yet, and my 19 year old only started more urban driving about a year ago.
posted
I always thought that the real problem wasn't the driving age, but that the driving test was too easy. And the large amount of inexperienced young drivers is a result of this.
I think the driving test should be the following: they put a pregnant lady in your car, and you have to get her to the hospital before she gives birth...GO!
posted
I could technically drive when I was sixteen. I'm nearly nineteen now and not only can I not drive, many of my peers cannot either. My parents would not let me get my first (conditional) licence before I turned seventeen, and I ended up only getting it a day before my eighteenth birthday.
I think that sixteen is a little young to drive and that although conditional (which in Canada means you must drive with an experience driver beside you) licenses can be given only to people who are 16 years old, the next level should only be given to those who turn seventeen, instead of being the six or seven months it actually takes. This would keep very young drivers off the roads with only their friends to distract them.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
In MI I got my permit at 15 1/2, but my parents use to take us once and a while to a dirt road near our cottage....a private road...and teach us.
In MI, unless they have changed it, it is permit at 15 1/2, and license at 16...but in order to get your license at 16 you have to have passed the drivers ed class given by the state, which involves not just classroom but actual driving experience.
I have been in 3 accidents....and only one was my fault at all. I swerved into a car trying to avoid someone driving into my lane head on. The others were me getting rear-ended.
posted
There are other issues to consider as well. If the driving age is raised to 18, a large number of people will be in college while they have to learn to drive. This could effect their options for summer work, or co-op or internships etc.
I would agree though that making the test harder should be the first step.
posted
Shan, I wonder if it wouldn't make sense to have conditional licenses for kids 16 - 18. If they have an accident that is their fault, they lose their license until they're 18, at which point they can retest again to get their license back. If they have another accident that is their fault, they lose their license until they're 21. At which point they can retest again.
I hate to penalize responsible kids for the misdeeds of a few idiots.
On the older end, I have often thought it would be nice to have churches offer driving services to the elderly.
Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
Jeniwren, I agree! (about the driving of the elderly)My grandmother went downhill fast when she gave up her car, and her mobility. So sad.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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quote:Shan, I wonder if it wouldn't make sense to have conditional licenses for kids 16 - 18. If they have an accident that is their fault, they lose their license until they're 18, at which point they can retest again to get their license back. If they have another accident that is their fault, they lose their license until they're 21. At which point they can retest again.
i can see a large percentage of teenagers doing a hit and run, rather than risk losing their license for some sort of minor fender bender.
Posts: 8741 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
The test being easy or hard isn't the problem. The stuff they're talking about isn't based on ability, but rather judgement. The contention is that because the area of teenagers' brains that deal with risk assesment and related judgement calls doesn't look or act like it does in adults brains, that they may not have sufficient judgement to take on the responsibility of driving.
I'm ambivilent on this issue because they've got a pretty good point that, taken as a group, teenagers behind the wheel do a lot of stupid things and cause a lot of damage to themselves and others, but that historically, teenagers took on a lot more responsibility than this and the majority of them did fine.
I don't know all that much about the research here, so I'm talking out of my rear, but I don't think that it's sufficient to support the contention that teenagers can't be responsible. Historically and even currently, if you look at individual cases, that's not true. They may tend towards poor decision making, but I think it's obvious that they are not condemned to it.
I get very wary when people point to brain structures as the immutable cause of things. Especially in a case like there where it's used to show the supposed inferiority of a group of people, it tastes an awful lot like eugenics to me. Anatomy is not destiny, especially when the anatomy we're talking about is inferred from the statistical mean.
There's strong arguments towards raising the driving age based on traffic accidents and such. I don't know that pointing to the supposed neurological cause strengthen these any, though understanding the neural basis for this stuff is certainly important.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
I agee stider looks like a bad idea if you ask me. I think they should make the test harder and give you better training. I got my license originally in MN where they require a class, a test, 10 hrs behind the wheel, and something like twenty hours on permit to get your license and I still think it was sadly underpar for what we should have done. I think the test should be harder but more importantly I think not the written test but the driving test should be more difficult. Also the behind the wheel training should be increased. One of the stupid things about that is that I think your time sitting in the backseat watching the other kid drive(and hit things counted towards your own behind the wheel time) I think the biggest problem is a lack of experiance and training, not maturity, so I don't think raising the age would do much.
Posts: 832 | Registered: Jan 2005
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posted
There is an interesting article on the brain in this month's National Geographic, where it says among other fascinating things, that there is a biological basis for not allowing people to rent cars until they are 25. That's when the judgement and reasoning part of the brain is apparently mature.
posted
I think research shows (Bob can correct me if I'm wrong) that most teen wrecks occur when there is more than one teen in the car.
If they would just put limits on the license (driving with adult licensed driver, or driving alone with x number of miles of home) I would be all for that. Quit letting 15 year olds cruise around with a carload of 15 year olds. That is trouble waiting to happen.
Of course, this could possibly cause SOME problems for cases when siblings ride together to school...
posted
I think that MN did something like this. I think they made a two nonfamily member maximum for drivers under eighteen or something like that.
Posts: 832 | Registered: Jan 2005
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posted
One thing that I really like about the European age limit for driving is that it is after the age limit for drinking. Thus, silly teenagers can get drunk at fifteen or sixteen, and then learn the hard way that falling down on cobblestones on your bike on the way home hurts. There's far, far less danger of doing yourself or others damage while drunk if you're on a bicycle or your own two feet. By the time teenagers have hit eighteen, and can drive, most have learned their lesson about over-indulging. That, coupled with extremely strict laws about drunk-driving (in Germany, I think, they take your license for life), keeps the number of deaths due to teenage drinking and driving down.
Posts: 2409 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
Squicky, is it possible to make a test that looks directly at judgement? I would think it is; I've never seen it done, but if the psychologists can learn that teens are immature in that area it must be possible to test for it.
Posts: 1114 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
Mabus, Sure, I can think of a bunch of tests that indirectly or directly touch on judgement. From what I've read (which is by no means extensive)$$, though, I don't think that psychometrics has been applied here. The data they're working from is pretty much all neurological. They're just saying that kids brains look and act differently than adult brains in the area that we believe judgement calls are made. One of the big differences is, if I remember correctly, a much less extensive pattern of activation and little projective sensual conceptualization (basically, kids don't have as much stuff going, don't have it as interconnected enough, and are less likely to form predictive sense conceptions - like imagining the results of a car crash in a concrete sense picture).
The current driving test isn't really concerned with judgement, except peripherally. It's much more oriented towards testing aptitude. One of the problems with testing judgement is that it requires putting people in stressful situations, which is troubling from a practical, safety, and liability standpoint. It also can suffer from some pretty significant domain effects, where people who show good judgement in one context may show poor judgement in another.
I actually think if people put the effort into designing a test that predicts whether or not someone is likely to going to drive stupidly, that we could a relatively accurate one and also get a good idea of what sort of training would act as a prophalatic against dumb driving, but I don't think that doing this would be socially palatable.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote: If they would just put limits on the license (driving with adult licensed driver, or driving alone with x number of miles of home) I would be all for that. Quit letting 15 year olds cruise around with a carload of 15 year olds. That is trouble waiting to happen.
Here in Oregon, an instructional permit can be issued at age 15 after passing a written test. This allows the holder of the permit to drive when a licensed driver over the age of 21 is in the passenger seat of the car.
The license itself can be issued at age 16. Those applying for the license must pass a written test, have had their permit for at least 6 months, have either 100 hours of driving (signed and vouched for by a parent or guardian) or 50 hours of driving and a driver's ed class (also signed and vouched for by a parent or guardian). For the first 6 months, the driver is not allowed to have any passengers younger than 21 other than immediate family in the car. These restrictions don't apply when a parent or a driving instructor for something like driver's ed is in the car. Oregon, until recently, did not have this clause, which led to complications with recently licensed drivers taking driver's ed.
Anyways, for the second 6 months after the license is issued, the driver cannot have more than 3 passengers younger than 21 in the car, excluding immediate family.
For the entire first year of the license, drivers are restricted from driving between midnight and 5 am except driving between home and work/school or specifically for employment purposes, or if they are with a licensed driver 25 years old or older.
These restrictions apply for one year or until the driver is 18, whichever happens first.
Posts: 1466 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
Yeah, they're recent here in Oregon, as well. I'm not 100% sure, but I'm thinking within the last 6 or 7 years or so.
Posts: 1466 | Registered: Jan 2003
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quote: They're just saying that kids brains look and act differently than adult brains in the area that we believe judgement calls are made. One of the big differences is, if I remember correctly, a much less extensive pattern of activation and little projective sensual conceptualization (basically, kids don't have as much stuff going, don't have it as interconnected enough, and are less likely to form predictive sense conceptions - like imagining the results of a car crash in a concrete sense picture).
In short hand - as I heard it described in a conference - "teens are hardwired for the gas pedal, but the braking system is non-functional."
Based on personal experience - I'd have to agree. With the caveat that elders re-experience their teens in a big way . . .
posted
I really don't think raising the age you can get your liscence would be practicle or possible in the society we (the U.S.)have now. As has been said, yeah, in Europe you can drive at 18, but they actually have good public trasit.
Also, I don't think the two year difference would affect the main reason teens get into more accidents: inexperience and distraction. I'm 18, I got my liscence at 16.5, and the accident I've been in where I was at fault was simply because I didn't have the driving experience to realize that what I was doing wasn't the greatest idea. No matter what age we let people get their liscence, they'll still be inexperienced.
I also don't think that waiting till teens' brains are more "developed" would combat the actual problem. My friends and I are all responsible and careful drivers, and we have been since we've been driving. Of course I know people who aren't at all, and who race each other in parking lots and play stupid traffic games. But they've been doing that since they've been driving and they certainly havne't stopped now.
I think that the intermediate restricted liscense that we have here in Washington (state) does work as well as anything I can think of would. Get in an accident and you can't get a non-restricted liscence until you're 21, or maybe it's five years. Same with breaking laws, such as having too many passengers or driving between 1 and 5am with restricted liscence. Thus if you do have the distraction of extra people in your car, you have extra motivation to obey the law so you don't get hit with a double ticket, etc.
Basically, I say since we already say 16 is the driving age, let's keep it because I don't think any change would help.
Posts: 866 | Registered: Dec 2003
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