Why Teenagers Should not be Able to Drive at 16 Research Paper

Why Teenagers Should not be Able to Drive at 16 - Research Paper Example According to Zasa and Thompson (8), most global transportation needs are provided by motor vehicles. Motor vehicles have broken the geographical barrier that hindered movement of people and cargo across vast distances. Although vehicles are predominantly applied for enhancing mobility of goods and people, they are also used for recreation and entertainment. Many motor vehicle industries are producing technologically enhanced vehicles in large volumes. This has dramatically reduced the cost of acquiring motor vehicles and they are no longer a preserve for the wealthy individuals. In this respect, motor vehicles are increasingly accessible to the people of different ages including teenagers. In United States for instance, 16-year-old teens are legally allowed to drive motor vehicles. However, road safety experts have in the recent past lobbied against this decree because of the high rates of accidents that these young drivers cause in roads across the country. This paper discusses the reasons why teenagers are not able to drive at 16 years. According to Peden, et al (17), teenage drivers are at the greatest risk of traffic crashes especially in developed countries. CDC (200) noted that road accidents is the leading cause death among teenagers in the United States. Both male and female teenage drivers from 16 to 19 years have the highest road accidents and violation of traffic rules in the country than any other group. In 2008 for instance, NHTSA (51) reported that 600,000 teenagers were injured in road accidents and 4000 of them died. In view of these alarming statistics, experts in road safety have elucidated various factors as the cause of accidents among this group. These include poor hazard detection, low perception of risks, uncalculated risk taking on the roads, failure to wear safety belts and lack of skill while driving. In addition, use of alcohol, hard drugs, driving at night and the carrying passengers while driving are other important factors that con tribute to high rate of accidents among teenage drivers in the 16-19 age groups (NHTSA, 38). In this respect, the major underlying factors of this behavior on the roads are lack of experience and distraction of the teenagers while driving. Teenagers should not be allowed to drive at sixteen years until they attain a sensible age where there are reasonably mature and experienced to drive. At sixteen years, many teenagers are still under the care of parents or guardians and they do not have many responsibilities that warrant use of motor vehicles in their daily activities. One of the main factors that attribute to high use of cars especially in developed countries is the convenience that they provide when attending to various duties such as work and other commitments. In this case, most adults who comprise the largest proportion of working class people own cars to enhance speedy execution of their activities. Due to the crucial role that vehicles play to such individuals, it is appare nt that they are more cautious and watchful than sixteen year olds who use vehicles for other reasons but not to attend work. Adults are thus more careful because they are also legally responsible for any offense that they cause on the roads by the careless driving. This is in contrast to sixteen year old who do not have much to lose when they violate traffic offense (DMV). Lack of foresight that dangerous driving could cost their lives and inflict permanent disabilities is some of the main shortcomings of sixteen-year-old drivers’ judgment (Abdel 63). Most teenage motorists drive for various reasons such as experiencing the thrill of driving at very high speeds. This makes them prone to accidents