I’m encouraged and highly hopeful that at least two ideas I have proposed recently are gaining adherents nationally. One is to raise the age for getting a driver’s license from 16 to 18, and the other is to rescind the order to increase the speed limit to 70 and drop it back down to the much safer 55 limit.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has suggested raising the age for obtaining a driver’s license from 16 to 17 or even 18 for a number of reasons. The first and most important of the reasons is the alarming number of serious accidents nationwide involving 16- and 17-year-old drivers.
In fact, the Institute noted that car crashes are the “leading cause of death among teenagers.” The latest statistics are that 5,000 teen drivers die each year in automobile accidents, and that the number is rising each year. According to the Associated Press, the National Highway Safety Association put it this way:
“The rate of crashes, fatal and nonfatal, per mile driven for 16-year-old drivers is almost 10 times the rate for drivers ages 30 to 59.” The association also noted that “many industrialized countries in Europe and elsewhere have a driving age of 17 or 18” and that “getting the highest of the high-risk drivers away from the wheel isn’t a bad idea.”
In the meantime, some national safety organizations are considering an appeal to lower the speed limit on the nation’s highways and roadways from 70 back to the 55 mph speed limit that was the rule for many years in America and other Western nations. That appeal is designed mainly to cut down the enormous death and injury toll on U.S. roads.
I hope both proposals gain support across the nation, not only for reasons of saving lives and preventing injuries but for other important reasons. One is to cut down on the use of gasoline in order to call a halt to soaring prices, as well as to save the nation’s supply of oil and end our reliance on oil-rich foreign countries.
Another good reason to raise the driver’s license age from 16 to 18 is that it would help reduce the number of cars in this traffic-tangled nation. The youngster who turns 16 is inevitably attuned to the teen-ager’s dream of getting his own auto, as well as his legal right to drive it.
Every urban area in the U.S. would cheer the elimination of autos owned and driven by teen-agers aged 16 and 17 — teen-agers who would then ride public transit vehicles to school or wherever they have to go. The cities’ transit systems would benefit from the increased patronage if the drivers’ age limit would return to 18.
There you have it — thousands of lives saved, the price of oil and its supply enhanced, and relief at last from the daily traffic jams. Why would anyone object? Oh, yes, I have one more observation to make, one that should appeal to every American interested in a lasting peace.
These ideas, plus the Democratic Congress’ reversal of its decision to halt construction of oil refineries and nuclear-energy plants, would end our reliance on foreign oil — and remove any reason to get involved in wars in the Middle East and elsewhere. Need any more reasons?