Getting a driver's license may not be every 16-year-old's dream anymore. A group wants to increase the age for getting a license. They say it would decrease the number of teen accidents and deaths. It's what every teenager looks forward to, the chance to crank up the engine and put their first car in gear. But if one institute has their way getting a license at 16, won't be a rite of passage anymore. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety is urging states to increase the driving age to 17 or 18. The group, funded by the Auto Insurance Industry, understands it may be a hard sell especially with teens.
16-year-olds Aaron Paul & Sheridan Griffith said, "I'd be pretty upset if that happened I have things to do, places to go."
16-year-old Jake Wren, who has a driver's license said, "I think it's fine like it is because you have to wait long enough already, and there were problems getting my license and it could take even longer, and I don't think kids should have to wait even longer to get their license."
15-year-olds Casey Moore & Sophie Rogers said, "Who's doing that and why? It sucks because you'd have to get a ride to work and school."
According to the National Highway Safety Administration, the rate of crashes per mile for 16-year-old drivers is almost 10 times the rate for drivers ages 30-to-59. A few teens agree with a change
"There's a lot of accidents here because kids don't pay attention to what's going on around them, they just zone off and drive and they don't pay attention to what's going on," 17-year-old Mikal Senn explained.
Chuck Mai with AAA Oklahoma says increasing the driving age would help prevent accidents, but where would it stop?
"It would do even more good to raise it to 21 or even 25. We'd save hundreds of thousands of lives, but realistically is that going to happen, it's going to be a really tough sell in most states and certainly here in Oklahoma we'd have a real hard time raising the driving age at all," VP of Public Affairs for AAA Oklahoma, Chuck Mai explained.
Mai says the state needs to focus their efforts on the graduated driving system already in place.
"Educate the parents on how to safeguard the lives of their teens by phasing in the driving privileges gradually as they get more experience behind the wheel," Mai concluded.
A few parents find it ironic that this issue is going public just weeks after a group of college presidents proposed lowering the drinking age to 18. And some say the focus on teens has kept our attention away from the real problems, which include driving while intoxicated. The graduated driver's licensing program in Oklahoma is tied to Driver's Education. If you go through a driver's education program, teenage motorists can get behind the wheel at an earlier age.
