I don't find a whole lot of reason in these arguments.
Pushing back the age to get a drivers license to 18 isn't going to make a difference. It's the experience behind the wheel that counts, along with the image society pushes forward about certain kinds of driving and cars.
Glorification of street racing in traffic has probably been the biggest contributor to the additional reckless racing behavior of drivers on the roads today. It seems quite apparent that people need to have a driving safety course along with their normal drivers ed course to teach them how to handle their car in an emergency, and to reinforce the dangers of automobile accidents.
Even so, people rarely learn from the mistakes of others, they for some reason prefer to make the mistakes themselves, and there is no substitute for real world driving experience.
Would anybody here expect younger drivers to be more responsible or better able to handle their cars than people with 10 or 20 years of experience under their belt? Is there any question as to why younger drivers have a higher rate of accidents?
Restricted licenses are great, in theory. The driver gets experience behind the wheel with an adult overseeing their operation of the vehicle. The problem is, as soon as you remove the direct supervision, all that stuff that they want to do gets done. Of course, this is all assuming the young driver is actually interested in cars. Many kids are simply more interested in a thumping sound system or an LCD than a supercharger.
In regards to the comments about the parents being to blame, you're right. Parents are partially to blame. I wish parents in our society had enough friggen backbone to stand up and take their medicine, but they don't want to parent their children, they want the rest of society and schools to do it for them. Every parent has a responsibility to educate their children on stupid and smart behavior, including that which happens on the roads.
Raising the legal driving age to 18 will do one thing. Make 18-20 year olds worse drivers, albeit some maturing will have taken place (limited), and they will probably remain slighly better than what would have been the 16-18 year olds.
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