DEBATE: Should 16-year-olds be allowed to drive?

The main fault of the arguement is establishing a certain age where people are supposedly responsible enough to do something, be it voting, driving, or drinking. Theoretically, if we were in a society where 14 year olds were the norm for adult regulations, we'd have 12 year olds wanting more rights, disregarding actual physical maturity of course. Since we all grew up to associate certain privileges to age 18 and 21, we (yes, ALL of us, no exceptions) generalize about these age groups. Like I said before, maturity and stupidity knows no age group; if we were able to measure mental capacity and stabilty, we would throw away these silly age limitations.

Oh by the way, since we all do progress at different rates Ryujin, the 2 years can either make a huge or irrelevant difference. I was able to completely change my personality in 3 months from a hyperactive social guy to a semi-permeable recluse. Just depending on the situation people can change fairly easily, and maturity can also be a possibility.

Originally posted by Ryujin
And I still fail to see the difference between 2 or 3 years... An 18 year old is just as 'hormone wild' as a 16 year old, if not more so!

those two years had a huge difference for me, at least.

I don't think I've EVER seen a radical change between a kid when I know him at 16 then when he becomes 18...

I don't want to be rude, but you being 15 years old (right?), takes away some credibility when we're talking about this matter..at least in my eyes. I'm not saying you couldn't know, just that it's more about actually having been there instead of 'seeing' it in others.

I just woke up, so I might be a bit random.. o_____O

hyperactive social guy to a semi-permeable recluse

Welcome to the club :-) lol

Oh, and the age difference we're talking about is NOT 16 and 40, it's 16 and 18, or maybe 16 and 20...

Yes we know its not about 40yr olds. But your missing the point. With age comes experience. We can talk about 2 to 5 yr olds if you want but the same idea applies.

Trust me, I've been around plenty

I fail to see how your brother and the 18yr olds you've been around are representatives of the older population. I hate to break the news to you (and im not alone here) ive been 16..17..18..19..20 and soon 21. Your younger experience doesnt quite hold up in an age debate because ive been there. I know what they're like.

And I still fail to see the difference between 2 or 3 years

Think about the diff between 17 and 20, 13 and 15...or 14 and 16. Those are big diffs. Being fifteen and not thinking a couple years makes a diff...then is a 13 year old as mature as you are? Should a 13yr old drive?? A year or 2 can (*note* the word can) make a huge difference...especially @ younger ages cause your still developing mentally.

I like the quote feature tonight lol

The main fault of the arguement is establishing a certain age where people are supposedly responsible enough to do something

I agree. My take on it is to play it on the safe side(with the idea that ppl mature as they age <-- i use "mature" loosely...not a good word in this debate lol). I understand establishing an age is hard..and everyone is diff. but its would be easier in my mind to raise the age as a buffer/saftey zone.

Also i gotta wonder (on the topic of insurance) what younger drivers do to taxes and auto-repair prices and things of that nature? I mean some @$$ street races...dies...then you gotta call the paramedics....firemen...cops...etc. These are services payed for by taxes and donations (basically the publics money).


Edit - Sorry to anyone that read half a corrupted post lol. I hit the wrong button and didnt realized it posted before i was done thinking lol

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Rodder454
Quote:
Trust me, I've been around plenty


I fail to see how your brother and the 18yr olds you've been around are representatives of the older population. I hate to break the news to you (and im not alone here) ive been 16..17..18..19..20 and soon 21. Your younger experience doesnt quite hold up in an age debate because ive been there. I know what they're like.
[/B][/QUOTE]

my thoughts on reading that exactly... allthough im only 18 i still know, from myself, how i changed, how the world changed around me, and how my friends changed..

i had no idea, when i was 15-16/whatever how mature my big brother or/and his friends where.. my brother is 4 years older than me for the record and just by looking at him, i would, in no way, be able to say that he wasnt more mature than me..

sorry, thats just plain silly ...

but mo0 had a point you see.. IF we where able to look at each individual and by tests see how mature they where for different reasons.. there would be no laws like this.. and hell yeah.. if 16 year old where able to drive all over the world, the 14 year old would start complaining.. thats just the way things go.. we all want, what we cant have...

okay, it seems like this is a never-ending thread .. ^_^

Maybe I didn't phrase that right... When I was talking about maturity, I just meant in general from what I've seen. But when I said I've seen plenty and I talked about my brother and his friends, I meant that they are of the age group (18-19) that you guys think people should start driving at. And I've been in the car with them enough to know they drive as crazily as many others, usually on purpose, not because of stupidity. But my point was, as was Mattboy's, unless I'm wrong, that many people (especially at younger ages, 16-20's) will still mess around. Some people will do it more safely than others (Only driving crazy with no one else and on empty roads) and others will do it in traffic, but it's gonna happen... And my points were that at 16 when you first drive you may drive crazy AND inexperienced, after a few years you may drive crazy, but are experienced, which is why I think 16 years olds get in more crashes and why it wouldn't help to change the age...

I, for one, know that I'll be pretty cautious for at least the first 6 months I have my license, because I'd be too scared I'd get in a wreck right after I got my license....

I, for one, know that I'll be pretty cautious for at least the first 6 months I have my license

Well at least you'll be safe for six months. I'll be sure to keep an eye for a 16 and a half year old dumbass on the road after that...

You would hopefully be cautious from start to finish of your driving career, not just the first six months.

*rolls eyes*

My point was that I'm not going to (and I think many people don't) get my license then go 100 miles an hour and skip stop lights, nowhere in that post did I say "I'll be cautious 6 months, and then wildy drive down the road making sure to hit each car I see"

Jeez... I feel like I can't even have an intelligent conversation because I get attacked for my age.... Of course I can't know anything, everyone who is 20 and older must be a genius compared to me. I guess I'll be a moron until I'm at least 25, then I'll miraculously be smart like you guys and then I can ridicule stupid little 15 year olds who CAN'T know what they're talking about no matter what...

Wow, this has grown quite a bit since the last time I looked at it...
There's something about arguing, or at least discussing things that's fun, to me at least... Its probably 'never-ending' 'cause of a few things, like people in general don't like to feel stupid and thus stick to whatever they're saying and try to prove they're right, 'cause it sucks being proved wrong.
Be careful with some of these generalizations, even if a large majority, a very large majority, or people are some way, there are always exceptions, to everything, including this rule...:p .
I don't know why we would change legal driving age in US anyways, unless something statistically showed to everyone that it would be better if another age was picked. I guess the death count is a fairly good reason, but its more about money I think, so unless it shows to be more profitable to change the age around here, I doubt it'll happen anyways.
I'm sure ya'll know this, but 21 is the age for drinking for a reason, a fairly good one I think, or at least a half-way decent one...:p I guess some scientists fonud at point in time in the past that you're body/brain is still growing/etc. up to 21 and it generally slows down/stops or something around there, so drinking before then can severely hinder that developement. I don't want to drink anyways, alcohol makes you feel funny. But I plan on having a glass of wine every once and a while when I'm old enough, 'cause its supposed to be good for ya.
Young age sure does have the disadvantage of a lack of experience, that doesn't mean some of us youngins don't know a little about maturity. I dunno if I'd necessarily be classified as a youngin', I'm almost 18...Hehe, I'm gonna turn 18 right after election day, or sort of right after, the week of at least :p . Some kids are a great deal more mature than some adults. As its been said, maturity knows no age (it does however have a general idea though...a 6yr old usually isn't going to be anywhere near as mature as an 18 yr old, and just by shear inexperience with life, an 18 yr old won't usually be as mature as an 80yr old). I'm not trying to say I'm more mature than any of you, although I may very well be...in some ways (I think I've said it before, to me there are many different types of maturity). Surely anyone older than me is most likely going to know a lot more than me, or at least most people older than me will. I don't really know what my point is though...
Sheesh, 120mph! Crazy person :p (Anyone faster than you is crazy and anyone going slower than you is an idiot, right? :p Seems to be the general thought of a fair amount of drivers out there) Really though, ya never now what might pop out, unless you could clearly see for miles (at least like 10...) afterall, at 120mph, you're going 2 miles a minute, in the time it'd take you to stop you'd probably travel at least a half mile from that speed..and it sounds like you couldn't see that well, 'cause you didn't see the officer. But it's your life (and the life of anything that could have popped up :p , but I guess teh things that might pop up should know better to not be in your way) I don't mean to lecture, you probably don't need me to say this anyways, I'm a lot younger than you, so my opinions prob. won't weigh much on you at all anyways. But we're all in good humor here right? :p
Lots of things 'cause accidents (like teens/drinking/cell phones/food/anything you try to do in the car that isn't driving, while still driving...) best we can do though is try to minimize it. A stroke of the pen (I know it would take more than that...) could 'stop' teens from being on the road, it could also ban cell phone use while driving, or require cars be equipped with breathalizer type thingies to prevent a drunk person from being able to even start the car... They haven't done it yet though, and it'd be awfully fun for the state/city to try and enforce it. I guess parents could pitch in to help keep teens at bay (although some teens would still get arond it, and some parents would also argue against it..) and I guess since they were able to require seatbelts they could probably require the breathalizers, I dunno how they could enforce cell phones though... And then there's the problem of sleep deprived drivers (almost as dangerous as drunk ones, if you've seen some of the studies on it, I don't have any stats, but I know they've found sleepy drivers to be a bad thing too ).
Insurance works for me...I don't have to pay as much 'cause of good grades (as if good grades was really that good of an indicator...I know plenty of smart folks with some crappy common sense, or as a friend of mine likes to call it...uncommon sense ).
Well it's been fun again :p Keep debating/arguing/discussing its good fun, don't get too bent out of shape over it though, noboady needs that kind of stress, take it all with a grain of salt (anyone happen to know where that saying comes from? I'm curious)

Edit:
Its not that anyone thinks you're a moron, and can't know anywhere near what they do (or at least I hope nobody thinks that). But because you simply don't have as many years under your belt you simply can't know more than them, well you could...but it's highly unlikely...

If all else fails, and you just don't like what anyone is saying here, just ignore them. Nobody here can really affect you that much, so don't let them if it bothers you.

Heh, good post Ziklen.

[qoute] (Anyone faster than you is crazy and anyone going slower than you is an idiot, right? Seems to be the general thought of a fair amount of drivers out there) [/qoute]

Heh, yah, I hate driving in cars with drivers who talk like that.
Like "Oh this guy is SO slow. Come on gramma." But then someone passes, and there like "Well, There goes a really stupid idiot. Blahblhalbhah" Like that. It annoys me.

Yup, sleep drivers are dangerous too... My brother was coming home from work at like 11:00 and only got 2 hours of sleep the night before and fell asleep. Luckily he wasn't hurt, and his car was only slightly damaged. He ran over a speed sign and hit a mailbox (it was like a metal beam and just fell over). It was an uncrowded road though...