Whoa! Licensing a 16-year-old Could Be Fatal

Reprinted from Trauma Nurses Talk Tough, Spring 2005 newsletter, with permission from Joanne Fairchild.

Hang on, parents! Don’t be too eager to encourage that teen of yours to get a driver’s license!

New findings from brain researchers at the National Institute of Health (NIH) explain for the first time why efforts to protect the youngest drivers usually fail.

It’s all about the pre-frontal cortex. That part of the brain, which is responsible for judgment, logic and reasoning, doesn’t begin developing until a human being is 12 to 13 years old and doesn’t reach full maturity until around age 25.

“Evidence is mounting that a 16-year-old’s brain is generally far less developed that those of teens just a little older,” say the scientists at the NIH campus in Bethesda, MD. The research helps explain why 16-year-old drivers have the highest violation, crash, fatality and injury rate among all drivers.

According to a recent USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll, Americans are beginning to get the picture, a picture Europeans have long realized. They increasingly favor raising the driving age. Now the majority, 53%, think teens should be 18 before getting a license. Sixty-one percent think a 16-year-old is too young to license. Only 37% of those polled thought it was OK to license a 16-year-old, compared with 50% who thought so in 1995.