Raising the age does not guarantee a reduction in deaths. Rather, it would just change the statistics from "17 to 20 year olds" to "18 to 21 year olds". The reason why drivers crash is a lack of experience, and an 18 year old with one year's worth of experience is just as likely to crash as a 17 year old with one year's experience. For that matter, it would be the same with a 35 year old with one year's experience. Raising the age therefore would not dramatically increase deaths and injuries. You may be able to change the age, but you can't change the people! Additionally, one cannot say logically that one must raise the driving age because teenagers are harming others and/or being harmed while driving. For example, a parallel can be found in driving statistics for males versus females. According to studies, males of all ages are 77% more likely to kill someone when driving than females. It would be just as illogical to raise the driving age to 18 as to ban males from driving.

Everybody is different. To say that someone at the age of seventeen is not mentally mature is a sweeping generalisation. Some people by the age of 18 may well not have reached what the proposition cite as "full mental maturity". Some people may never reach "full mental maturity". We mature at different rates, and therefore we have safeguards to ensure that those driving have sufficient "mental maturity", and it's called "the driving test". If you haven't passed, you can't legally drive without a person who has held a full clean licence for three years with you. Doing so is breaking the law and is punished. Raising the age to 18 would have no effect whatsoever because the driving test is there to ensure the "mental maturity" of the driver before he is fully qualified. Peole are going to be the same no matter how old they are! There are some people that are 20 years old and above that are still not mature. It so depends on what type of person you are. People need to grow up sometime.

Im 17 years old, didnt take drivers ed, took ten questions for my written drivers test (in oklahoma), failed my behind the seat drivers test, went back got a hundred, have yet to be pulled over, and get a ticket. Never got in a wreck, dont talk on my cell phone, can drive in cities like LA and San Francisco no problem. And see many many many horrible drivers everywhere i go. I dont think the age limit should be raised, i think if you fuck up once you lose your privilege to drive period. Stupid biased point.

The proposition forgets that drivers are not "let loose" on the roads, but that they must take a test first to ensure their driving proficiency. And to generalise and say that 17 year olds are immature is wrong. In fact, many boy-racers are over the age of 20 at least. Look at the presenters and audience of Top Gear.

People should have the choice as to whether they drive or use other forms of transport. If the government wanted to promote greener transport then it should do it in a way that does not just discriminate against young people. Also not everybody has access to public transport especially young people! This in turn would be a much less effective way for young people to get about as they would become more reliant on others, like their parents, to get them about which is not always practical.

This has nothing to do with raising the legal driving age. First off there is already a restriction that states that a driver under the age of 18 cannot have more than one non-family member under 18 as a passenger in their car. Get your facts straight. And why should all younger drivers be penalised for the mistakes for a few. As some studies have shown 77% of males of all ages are more likely to kill someone than a female, so should be also ban males from having passengers? Also I thought the 'P' plate process was a 'settling down' process, where PROVISIONAL drivers are watched more closely than open drivers..

So instead all the 18 year old drivers are the ones not smart enough to go to University or the ones who do go but had very little time to practice. Now you will just have the poor 18 year old drivers giving their smart friends rides to school. great.

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younger drivers today dont cause as many accedents as elderly drivers today because they arnt allowed to drive until the ge of 18 which means they just might give more caution to the road than to a bottle of beer or a bottle of vodka.

Sure, but the percentage? I highly doubt so. All you are doing is discriminating against young candidate-drivers and reducing number of drivers and cars on the road. I could lower the number of accidents, too, if I just chose that no one could drive who is over 70.