[Retsof]

I am doing an assignment for school and figured A poll could come in handy.  I know we have a fairly large age range here so I should get a good cross section.  Vote away people.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

It might seem like a good idea from the reducing accident perspective.  If you think about it though what happens to all those kids that graduate high school at 17 or when they just turn 18 (heck I met state graduation requirements when I was 16) and need to get a job?  Not everyplace has public transportation so they need some way to get to work.  Also a lot of high school kids have jobs and need to get to and from work.  Parents aren't always available for transportation. 

[WeatherOp]

First and foremost, lets vote on whether or not people over 60 need to have their license test retaken every three years or ban middle age women from using cell phones while driving.  I've been nearly killed far more from these two than from teens.

[BloodEagle]

The age limit doesn't need to change. The difficulty of getting the license needs to change.

:EDIT:

or [a] ban middle age women [on] using cell phones while driving.

Hell, yes.

[Dark Hunter]

...ban middle age women from using cell phones while driving.

That's already happened in New Mexico (well, not just middle-aged women, but everyone). Unless it's hands-free, drivers are not allowed to operate cell phones and drive at the same time.

Predictably, though, many simply disregard this rule.

[Mars]

The age limit doesn't need to change. The difficulty of getting the license needs to change.

Amen. I also recommend some sort of affordable driving education as well, as long as it's going to be so ingrained in (well US) culture

[blackhole]

Its not about keeping young teens off the streets, its about keeping stupid people in general off the streets

[Bob-san]

A big NO. Many minors leave for college in distant cities; meaning that learning to drive prior to being 18 is a large advantage.

[Herra Tohtori]

I voted yes because 18 is the age required to have a car driving lisence in Finland.

Works fine, too. However the most accidents happen to young male drivers within a few years of getting their lisence in Finland as well. Can't really imagine how it would be if 16-year-olds were allowed to get a lisence...


Using cell phones while driving without a hands-free device is actually illegal in Finland as well.

[Polpolion]

If you're concerned about driving skill, age isn't too much of a factor. Just make the test harder so it's possible to fail.

[Dark Hunter]

If you're concerned about driving skill, age isn't too much of a factor. Just make the test harder so it's possible to fail.

QFT

[Herra Tohtori]

Driving is not difficult. Driving safely can be difficult for some people, but most everyone has the skills required for it. Unsafe driving is far more often caused by other factors than lack of skills for it. So the argument is not just about how skilled drivers are, but how safely they drive. This also means that testing the skills would not be enough, but some kind of psychological profiling bull**** would need to be done and those are not ultimately reliable (or affordable) means of testing for driving lisence.

Whether or not 16-year-olds have tendency to generally drive more dangerously than 18-year-olds, I have no research data, but I would guess that by average psychological profiling, a 16-year-old would be more likely to make fast and bad decisions and be more easily affected by peer pressure to drive fast and cool and ultimately unsafely.

I'm not saying that 18-year-olds would not be susceptible to same faults, but I am saying that they have two less years to die in a self-induced traffic accident before hopefully growing up and learning to drive safely.

Of course, the counter argument is that when driving becomes a normal thing that you don't need to wait till your 18th birthday, driving dangerously would "lose it's appeal", but I don't really buy it - it just moves the wait to 16th birthday, and then the 16-year-olds will be satiating their need for speed instead of 18-year-olds. And whether or not the "need for speed" reduces faster for 16-year-old new drivers or 18-year-old drivers, I would guess 18-year-old-drivers - and there would probably be less of 18-year-olds who do have this "need for speed", for lack of better wording.


Obviously some drivers never grow up. Conversely some never develope any need for speed... I was 19 when I drove my lisence, I took my time in clocking driving hours with our car when it was necessary to get from place A to place B (my mum got a teaching lisence so paying for driving lessons wasn't an issue). It was never a big deal anyway, and I don't even especially like driving, it's mostly boring, and when it isn't boring it's very very stressful.

Interestingly, most drivers rate themselves "better than average"... just an interesting statistical anomaly.

[Hellstryker]

Its not about keeping young teens off the streets, its about keeping stupid people in general off the streets

QFT

[CP5670]

First and foremost, lets vote on whether or not people over 60 need to have their license test retaken every three years

I encountered an old man just today who entered a highway ramp from the wrong side and presumably came up against fast incoming traffic. No idea what happened to him. I was a little lucky to miss him on the (single lane) exit myself, as it was only 15 seconds or so after I had come out.

[captain-custard]

last time i looked at the  stats , young people seem to have more spectcular high speed accidents,  but old people cause more accidents and greater financial and physical damage.... and how many 18 year olds "took the wrong turn and are found doing 20mph going the wrong way down the motorway against the flow of traffic...


here in france 14 year olds take a test so that they can ride small cylinder motocycles scoooters etc , this gives them training and road scence for when they are old enough to drive a car, and te mad ones tend to end up breaking legs or killing them selves before they get to the car stage. this i see as some form of natural selection

[Aardwolf]

This is probably one of the few circumstances where raising the restrictions won't lead to too much of people just doing it illegally.

At my high school, all of the seniors and most of the juniors drove to school. It made the traffic situation horrible. Some of them justified it by saying they didn't have to get up as early, but the thing is if buses show up late the people who rode them get a pass, driving to school you don't.

So yeah, <18 you don't need to drive.

[Mobius]

Here you must be at least 18 to drive(a few decades ago it was 21, if I remember well). I got the driving license a bit neglected, I'm almost 19 and got it only a couple of weeks ago(9/11, what a nice date ).

All I can say is that it's insane to let <18 people drive and have cars.

[Aardwolf]

Hey cool I'm older than Mobius.

[Mobius]

Most team member are older than me, what's the point?

[TrashMan]

As someone who got his drivers license 2 months ago (I've been driving a lot since) I can tell you one thing for certain - it horrifies me how many people simply disregard everything they learned in driving school.
Honestly, what I would do is put up much harsher penalties. I don't care if the driver has 18 or 30 or 80 years - follow the damn BASIC safety rules.