Argumentative Essay: Is It Worth Raising The Driving Age?

566 Words3 Pages

“Donovan Tessmer was about to start his senior year of high school. While out with friends, the teen’s girlfriend was speeding, lost control and hit a tree. Donovan wasn’t wearing a seat belt. He was ejected and killed instantly” (CBS). Donovan was probably a nice kid, but wasn’t wearing his seatbelt and now is make it tough on kids getting their license. Now people are think about raising the driving age to 18, but that won’t help. Raising the driving age just because of idiotic decisions made by teens. They should enforce the laws and making them stricter and safer. First of all, the real threat to the driver is the temptations and distractions that happen in the vehicle. Karen Sternheimer says, "The intense focus on teens diverts our attention from the real threats to public safety: speeding and driving while intoxicated" (CBS). Karen Sternheimer is a University of Southern California sociologist who studies accident. She’s saying that people just focus on the new driver who crashes, not on the drunk or speeding driver who crashes. James McKnight study referenced in the Journal of Accident Analysis and Prevention. McKnight say “driving in the dark and driving with friends are two of the top four behavioral and environmental factors contributing to teen crashes” (Willette). It’s the people in the car or …show more content…

Andrea Summers is a coordinator of the teen driving program for the Delaware Office of Highway Safety. Summers said “my state and others have chosen to toughen laws without raising the driving age - by banning teens from using cellphones while driving” (CBS). Other laws like imposing stricter driving curfews and expanding supervised driving time (CBS). “Around 6,000 teenage drivers are killed in car accidents each year” but most of them are untrained and unsupervised (Weaver). If those laws Summers talked about get passed they won’t have to raise the driving age and it will be