“Congratulations, you’ve passed the driving test.” At the age of 16 people can receive their drivers’ license. Many think that this age is too high but many more think it is too low. The age at which young people can receive their license is far too low. There are three stages of a license and people should not be able to receive the first stage of their license until they are 20. Cost, insurance, and age are all crucial points in why the driving age needs to be changed.


With the driving age at 16 there are a lot more accidents. The amount of accidents with teenage drivers is more than triple that of drivers who are older and have had more experience. If the driving age was higher this would lessen the number of accidents more because people would have a better understanding of what they are doing. People should not be able to start drivers Ed until they are 18 or older. This would maximize the understanding of what driving is and would permit people to spend more time learning. At the age of 15 when students are permitted to take drivers Ed and at 16 when they can first obtain a drivers’ license it is too soon. With only a year of practice and with not a lot of understanding about driving it is a main factor in the amount of accidents occurring. If drivers training started at 18 and went on for two years instead of a max of six months and we got our licenses at 20 it would increase understanding and in turn reduce accidents.


Insurance is also a major factor why we should not be able to get our licenses until we are 20. At the age of 16 the “grown-ups” still consider you to be a little kid. So with that they charge parents almost a thousand dollars more in six months than if you did not have a teenage driver. If you were 20 they could not consider you a “kid” anymore and therefore the rates would not go up. Insurance is also hard to obtain when you are 16. It is hard because it is extremely expensive and goes up if you have bad grades and or accidents. With such high rates and ridiculous criteria, it is hard and expensive, especially in today’s economy. Grades in school also matter in what your rates are. People with high grades get better rates than kids who do poorly in school. And it is not always the kids fault. They could just not understand what the teacher is telling them and not be able to take an easier class. They could be failing because of it and they would get charged a lot more as a result. If they were 18 when they started learning and 20 when they got their license that would eliminate grades altogether (excluding college if applicable).


The last issue that needs addressing is cost. Insurance has sky rocketed for kids at age 16 and if you had to wait until 20 there would be no excuse. Accidents are also a major part of things. People that receive their licenses at age 16 have a lot more accidents than those who are more learned in it. If we spent from age 18 to 20 learning it would give us a lot more experience and reduce accidents because they would have a broader understanding of what they were doing. If you get into an accident your insurance goes way up and then on top of that you have the repair costs so it sends the overall price even higher.


So if we moved the driving age to learning at 18 and the first stage of three licenses at 20 it would do many things to benefit us. It would decrease the number of accidents, lower insurance costs. And it would help people everywhere to learn more about it and take it more seriously.