Question

The brain of a teenager is different from that of an adult. The frontal lobes are not fully mature until the mid-twenties and the reward centers tend to have an exaggerated response to larger rewards compared to small rewards. This biological reality may affect teenage decision-making. Consider the debate about increasing the age at which teens can obtain a driver’s license. Research media articles related to this debate and summarize the evidence made by those who favor raising the age and those against raising the age. Be sure to describe the research methods used to collect the data and discuss the quality of the evidence including the use of biological aspects of teenage decision-making.

Answer 1

There has been an extensive debate on whether to raise the age limit for giving driving license as some believe the mind is not yet ready to be a good driver and some believe an individual has attained maturity by that time to become a good driver. There are many fatal accidents commonly seen amongst young drivers due to their impulsive and reckless driving pattern. It is believed by many that the brain needs to develop a little more and hence increasing the minimum age at which people can drive and obtain their driver’s license helps.

In some states of US, the youngest driving age was found be around 16 years and this might be a threat as the kids are not matured to sense wrong and right. A lot of them tends to have careless attitude that also reflects in the driving skills. Many accidents were observed in individuals below or around the age 18 leading to death due to reckless driving triggered by lack of maturity. There are lot of research done and data collection which led to the fact that increasing the minimum age for driving might help in stopping accidents to an extent.

The research was done and data collected on number of deaths and accidents that was caused when a teenager or young guy was behind the wheels. This gave a better insight about the fact that it was the immaturity and lack of proper awareness that led to accidents.