Swanson ACE Debate

I agree the age should not be raised because then kids at the age of 18 would be driving like 16 year old kids.

In a country with more than 2.95 million people milling about, we're bound to bump into each other at some point. Sometimes the effects are loud and a bit too devastating, but raising the state's driving age from 16 to 18 is still an idea borne of bureaucracy and not wisdom.

Yes, our youngest happen to do most of the bumping and crunching out on the roadways, but that is still no reason to take away a privilege they have anticipated for years.

As with most things, driving is a skill that has to be learned. It's not a textbook exercise, but one that develops as experience builds. People can be told how to maintain control of their car, but until that roadside hedge nearly becomes a catcher's mit, nothing truly substantive can be learned.

Tough way to learn? Yes, but necessary.

Spurred on by the deaths of two minor-aged males, Illinois State Representative John D'Amico proposed the legislation last December, and said that since then he has received strong support for the move.

Well, that's fine. It still won't pass.

Parents, unsurprisingly, are just as upset as their children about the proposal. In an era where free time is a commodity, parents just don't have the option of driving their children around. Until the state gets a viable mass transit system, that issue won't go away.

Beyond the logistics, becoming a smart driver is wholly experiential, and gaining that experience at a young age would be the same as at 30, never mind 18.

Fine, younger people might be more prone to accelerative impulses than their elders, but they have hormones, give ‘em a break. They apparently can't help it and the stats prove it: "Sixteen year-olds have by far the highest rates of teenage passenger deaths per licensed driver and per mile driven," according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

What can be helped is the system by which high schoolers are made into drivers. Make it harder to get a license and punish more harshly those who drive with abandon.

Not even a decade ago, Illinois law mandated a curfew and no cellphone use policy for teen drivers. Parents also used to sign off on their child's capability as drivers, acknowledging they had spent at least 25 hours on the road with them.

Let's try that again. Those policies allowed children the freedom to gain experience and gave parents ample work-time to help pay off the repair bills.