How young is too young.

Manuel
Joaquin Villar May

[email protected]

12^th
grade High School Senior

Wakeland
High School (enrolled in Texas Tech University, Lubbock for the 2020
Fall semester)

Frisco,
TX, 75033

Essay
Title: How young is too young?

During
the last years car accidents involving teenagers have increased in
numbers. I am looking at the cause of this phenomenon and propose
solutions to decrease those statistics.

These days it
is relatively easy to obtain a new drivers license. Take some
classes, pass an exam and present the required legal documents. The
legal driving age varies by state, but teenagers can get a permit
which allows them to drive with a supervising adult since age 14. At
14, we are legally not allowed to vote (18), to buy alcoholic
beverages (21) or to own fire arms (18) but we give them control over
a vehicle that can cause material and personal and damage, even
death.

A 14-year-old
teen who is learning to drive waits for instructions from the adult
who is supervising him. In an emergency situation, this wait period
can result in fatalities. It is proven that people at that age take
much longer to react with the correct action.

Drunk
driving is a very important aspect in deaths because of driving. More
than a third of fatal motor vehicle crashes among people aged 16-20
involve alcohol and those numbers a on a rise.Group pressure
represents tremendous pressure to many students and even adults and
causes them to act outside their normal behavior. I am convinced,
that teenage drunk driving is a result of that. The rational part of
a teens brain is not fully developed until the age of 25. The
prefrontal cortex is the part of an adult brain that responds to
situations with good judgement and awareness of consequences.
Teenagers simply lack this part of the brain, because it hasn’t
developed yet. Now, I am in favor of increasing the age limit to
obtain a driver’s license to 18 years, even though I gave my
parents a hard time before.

Driving education has to change, new drivers should have to take
presential classes in driving schools with qualified instructors and
visual materials, where questions can be answered in the moment. The
option to take online classes should be eliminated.

I would like to see a volunteer base of people who were involved in
an accident to take part in local driving schools and comment their
experiences first hand to the new drivers as part of their education.

Initiatives like higher fines, jail time and insurance companies
increasing their fees all seem to help getting the numbers down. But
we need more changes. Children learn in a natural way at young ages,
they absorb new languages as sponges. Drivers ed should start
at elementary school level, taught in the appropriate maturity level
and carry on through middle and high school. As long, as students
only see statistics, it doesn’t affect them.

Until it hits close to home, we don’t care. I think, school
districts should work together with agencies like the Department of
Safety or NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) and
the United States Department of Transportation and develop a visual
program for students to understand the dangers of drunk driving. The
school system has to take its responsibility in this problem.