I mean, to be honest I think there's other ways of solving it then raising the age. I had a brand new 37k car when I was 16 but I was extremely responsible with it. I think in the right hands 16 is a good age to get it at.
Do you still want more opinions on the subject?
In here you need to have 18 years old in order to have a proper license. You can get a learner's permission at the age of 17, but that means that you can't drive alone. You need to drive with a responsible adult by your side who has an up to date driver's license for the past 5 years. Sounds pretty safe, huh? Because for every learner of 17 years old driving a car, you have an adult of the age of at least 23 years old who's there to supervise the behaviour of the teenager. What's the problem with that?
Obviously not every 17 years old with a learner's permission is driving with that responsible adult by his/her side. It's almost impossible.
Plenty of teenagers learn how to drive at the age of 14, 15, 16 and don't even bother to get the learner's permission when they turn 17 because they know that it's impossible for them to be attached to an adult 24/7 and decide to wait till the age of 18 to get their driver's license. Therefore, we have a lot of kids driving without license/permissions
I will dare to say that most of those teens learn how to drive through their parents, who have decided to teach their own kids to know how to drive just in case they see themselves in an emergency situation; or hoping that their kids can help them if one of them has an emergency.
As someone who learned how to drive at the age of 21, I'd say no. I felt dumb learning at that age, I felt SO old while I was taking my lessons, but even more than that, I felt incredibly insecure. I have never been on car accident in my life, but as others said before me, being a good driver is a matter of practice. So, if you compare my 21 y.o-self scared to death driving on the highway with an average 21 y.o who has been driving since he was 16 y.o I can assure you that I was way more likely to crush my car than him.
It's like learning anything else. I learned how to swim being a 6 years old kid, never have been scared of water, and never took any risks because I know since forever which were my limitations on the water. I learned how to ride my bike at the age of 4, and now I'm an excellent urban-cyclist, I know the rules, I know how to calculate my own times, and I'm not afraid of raiding my bike.
I'm still not confident driving cars, but certainly I'm not as afraid as I used to be 2 years ago.
*English isn't my first language, I'm still learning *
The Following User Says Thank You to Amparo For This Useful Post:
I am currently teaching my 16 year old daughter to drive. I wish I could postpone it 2 years, but it is probably just me being neurotic, and/or permanently terrified when she is driving. I doubt things would change much if she were 18.
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