Present driving age acceptable

For a couple of years now, you've driven your teens to school, dance lessons, church events, football and basketball games, soccer matches and to their friends' houses.

When the teens turn 16 and get their Level 2 driver's license, you're more than happy to end the chauffeuring act and let them drive off on their own.

But studies show that kids who get their licenses at 16 are much more likely to get in a crash and, ultimately, die in one than are those who wait until 17 or 18.

What do you go for, your convenience or keeping your kid out of harm's way?
It only makes sense to pick the latter.

Because the leading cause of death for teens is the car crash, the Arlington, Va.-based Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, an auto insurance industry-funded research agency, is pushing to raise the driving age to 17 or 18.

The institute made its pitch to the annual conference of the Governors Highway Safety Association last week in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Some say it's silly to put licensure on the same time frame as going to college, joining the service and voting. Delaying teen driving, they say, also would make teens less responsible and postpone a traditional rite of passage to quasi-adulthood.

Anyone who got a license at 16 can vouch for the sense of liberation that came with it.

Still, there are those studies. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says the rate of crashes for 16-year-olds is 10 times worse than for those between 30 and 59. Those crashes claim the lives of more than 5,000 teens every year.

New Jersey is the only state to have taken the leap to 17, and it has the stats to show the success of that decision. British Columbia and the United Kingdom license at 17.


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