There is a difference between having something and then losing it vs not having it yet. If you get a license to do a thing you should be able to keep doing it until you are deemed incapable and that will vary between people.
Also, plenty of children those ages drive on private property, especially farms. There are kids doing backflip jumps on dirt bikes at those ages. Many of them are likely safer to be driving than others who are of "prime" age. I drove with a 30yo who terrified me with his dangerous lack of skill.
People are variable in capacity and skill. The bureaucracy finds it more manageable to put policy in place than to determine individual skill.
That seems like a very misplaced worry - it's not like children suddenly start running themselves into the ground without any downtime when they get their drivers' licenses.
Driving is pretty easy. I was operating heavy farm equipment at 11, and I’m not some sort of mechanical savant.
The maturity to make responsible choices is hard for younger kids. It’s probably smart to set limits to licenses to discourage bad behavior, but be real, some driver testing guy isn’t helping.
Do they not have a license because they'd rather self-learn, or do they not have a license because they don't meet the required age?
While I don't doubt that some people would not give a shit and self-learn and drive the A-tractors without a license anyway, at least lowering the age for a license would mean that those who want to be safer can get it.
You could even attach restrictions to said license that incentivise safer driving over time - a teenage license can be obtained at 15 but comes with some restrictions that get lifted over time (unless caught breaking the rules) and inherently "converts" to a full license by the time you're 18 assuming you haven't lost it beforehand due to unsafe driving.
I mean, you still have to go and actually learn how to drive once you turn 15-16 before anyone actually gives you a license/their car. People put a lot of time into that. There's also the fact that too small of a child physically can't see out of the front window.
But driving requires a person to be above a certain age. They have to go through a test to prove they're competent. And there's still certain rules to follow like not being intoxicated while driving even after they have proved themselves to be competent.
And most importantly driving is a privilege that can be taken away if someone repeatedly fails to comply with the rules. So not really a rational rationale
I teach driving lessons as a job. Adults usually become proficient a little faster than kids, as they take it more seriously and have learned the laws through osmosis. Most of the time the difficulty with adults is they have no one to practice with.
Regarding skill, I think it's genetic. Some people can get their license in a week, others it takes months. Video game skills probably help.
What would they like to say? The data suggests that it also takes approximately 10 years to form the skills one needs to drive. Hence why insurance rates typically decline to a meaningful degree when one turns 25.
But, like all things in life, there are tradeoffs. While road safety would no doubt improve if everyone had to spend 10 years learning and developing driving skills, there would be a lot of social consequences to keeping people from driving until so late in life. Consequences we have not been willing to accept.
We could just as easily allow medical professionals to practice without such lengthy requirements. Anyone can become a shoddy doctor. It is not hard job to do poorly. But we've selected different tradeoffs there. It is not as socially impactful if a doctor can't practice until later in life, and is arguably more socially beneficial to see them wait until their skills have really developed.
I know you're trying to make a reduction ad absurdum, but these are arguments that are actually made. For one, this is exactly the reason why we don't allow young people below a certain age to drive on public roads.
Furthermore, if I remember correctly, at least some jurisdictions have laws on the books that old drivers can have their licenses taken away if they are not able to operate a car safely anymore. I'm not sure if any jurisdictions require old drivers to actively demonstrate their competency in an exam or such, but I have definitely seen people argue for that idea.
I'm not opposed to it either, and in fact I would not age-gate it. If train drivers or airplane pilots are required to prove their competency on a regular basis, why should we not require car drivers to do the same, maybe every 5 or 10 years?
>–It’s harder to get a license. From 1996 to 2006, every state enacted graduated driving laws that make it more cumbersome for young people to get licenses. “Young people must now take more behind-the-wheel training (which is more expensive), fulfill additional requirements for permits, and once they are allowed to drive, they are often restricted to driving in the daytime without passengers.” The number of younger Americans without a driver’s license has risen from 21 percent to 26 percent since 2001.
This is a great development, considering the recklessness of many young drivers and their relatively high accident rates.
I always thought that the roads would be much safer if our legal drinking age and legal driving ages were switched, so that we'd have years of experience dealing with the effects of alcohol before we hit the roads, which would hopefully decrease incidents of driving under the influence of alcohol.
I think it’s funny how driving has become such a “required skill” in the states. I have a lot of friends who are in their 30s or older who haven’t ever been behind the wheel. It shows how what one person perceives as an essential skill is nothing to another person.
From the article: "It’s harder to get a license. From 1996 to 2006, every state enacted graduated driving laws that make it more cumbersome for young people to get licenses. 'Young people must now take more behind-the-wheel training (which is more expensive), fulfill additional requirements for permits, and once they are allowed to drive, they are often restricted to driving in the daytime without passengers.'"
That's at least part of it, although the article notes that the percentage change in young people without driver licenses is only from 21 percent in 2001 to 26 percent recently. My oldest son is plenty old enough to drive, and making enough money to get driver training and make payments on a car (he has no student debt), but he lives in New York City, so he has little occasion to drive. He's probably more used to using public transportation in general than many Americans because we all used public transportation to get everywhere when we lived overseas.
Our second son is also old enough to drive, and we will spring for his driving lessons if he desires to take them. But he can get to and from high school and many of his activities on foot (we live only a couple miles from the high school) or by bicycle, and of course we offer him rides when he needs rides. So he hasn't had much occasion to drive either.
On my part, as an aging Baby Boomer, I'm looking forward eagerly to the era of self-driving cars, when I can ride but not drive, and eventually cease buying vehicles, rather simply subscribing to a self-driving on-demand car service.
So my supposition is that although you're allowed to drive at 18 in France, the burden they place on licensing reduces the number of 18 year olds who actually do so, which has the effect of artificially aging their population of drivers. If you want to know how effective the training is, then you might need to normalize for age to eliminate that effect. If the discussion were about differences in how old you need to be to drive, then I'd agree with you, but the article is about the burdensome regulation around driver training.
In my country we don't just let people drive however they like on public roads. You have to be above a certain age, have passed a test, not be drunk or stoned, be driving a roadworthy vehicle, and follow many other rules. Your risk to other people's lives is carefully managed.
I'm going to talk about my state's perspective because what you're saying sounds like madness.
> 16 year old kids with a few hours of driving school
The standard curriculum for 16 year old drivers is 12-16 hours of in class lecturing, 5 hours of in-car instruction with a licensed professional, a minimum of 50 hours of in-car instruction from a guardian or family member, a nuanced written test, and an hour in-car examination.
That's just to get a restricted license. Until you get your real license 6 months later you have to additionally obey the following:
* No passengers except for your guardian, parent, or instructor.
* No driving after 11 PM.
* Absolutely no cell-phone use (even hands free).
* Any ticketable violation has a mandatory court appearance and will trigger a second round of more difficult driving instruction.
> Once you get a license you never get retested for vision or driving ability.
I have terrible vision and I have had to go through the test three times; after the third time I now have to my to wear my glasses to drive. It happens every time you have to renew your license.
> car accidents are the leading cause of death of 1-44 year olds
That's a bit misleading, there isn't much else that kills young people.
My point is that in situations where there is that kind of risk involved we actually to go through a lot of effort to mitigate it.
I wholeheartedly support the idea of increasing the standards for driving skill, training and ability. I've heard in Norway/Sweden that you have to spend a large amount of time and money training specifically for night driving, snow driving, standard driving, etc.
I know in most European countries getting a motorcycle license is far more difficult, expensive and restricting than in the US. Consequently, I bet they are more skilled drivers.
I've been in the car with so many people in the US that say they know how to (and are licensed to) drive, but yet clearly don't know how to drive. They are unaware of the most basic mechanics of how the car actually moves. The terms oversteer and understeer are completely foreign to them. They probably don't even know if their vehicle is front or rear wheel drive. And of course most couldn't parallel park if the street was empty.
Yet with the way we've architected America (huge and sprawling), everyone feels entitled and required to have a car. I moved to Ohio about a year ago, and apparently there's laws here that allow even 13 and 14 year olds to drive if no one else in the family can. I'm guessing in most countries the response wouldn't be to give a kid a license, but to say, "move to a city" or "here's some public transit". On the flip side, there are clearly many elderly that shouldn't be driving. Driving should be something you have to test for every few years, and that you're expected to always get better results on the test.
That comparison is confounded by the fact that most people, at least in the United States, get their driver's permit and license at a fairly young age, and don't have driving experience before that. A fair comparison would be between licensed and unlicensed drivers with the same amount of experience, but that's pretty hard to come by.
Statistically, the under-25 set tends to be pretty poor at risk assessment and judgement. Of course, that doesn't mean all people under 25. There's a huge amount of variability and a whole lot of extremely responsible and capable young adults.
The process you need to go through to get a pilot's license -- especially a commercial one -- is pretty rigorous and I would have confidence that anyone, of any age, who does it is qualified.
The process you need to go through to get a driver's license is very far from rigorous, and I don't assume that just because someone has one, at any age, that means they're good at it. So the statistics are more relevant. There's a very good reason why car insurance premiums are higher for people under 25.
If you can, teach your kid to drive at 13. On private property obviously, no traffic rules, just the mechanical part. Everything after that will be much easier.
Also, plenty of children those ages drive on private property, especially farms. There are kids doing backflip jumps on dirt bikes at those ages. Many of them are likely safer to be driving than others who are of "prime" age. I drove with a 30yo who terrified me with his dangerous lack of skill.
People are variable in capacity and skill. The bureaucracy finds it more manageable to put policy in place than to determine individual skill.
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