I do believe there should be some standard, since the dmv can't deal with a bundle of kids coming in daily with no understanding of the mechanics of how to drive, so I do believe age matters. I still think 16 is a good age to start because it's a time in your life where you are learning about growing up and on our way to being independent. So you can pile learning to drive on top of growing up, rather than growing up then having to learn.

Also, at 18 you are legally an adult, your parents no longer have to take care of you, or let you live in their home. This would be awkward for a lot of youths to deal with the stress of getting a car, learning to drive it, and moving out to live on their own.

I believe it would cause more problems that it would fix.

Some people need to be able to drive straight away by the time they are 18 and it is license not liscence.

For some things, such as drinking, a somewhat arbitrary number is necessary from a logistical standpoint; Any form of specific subjective testing regarding drinking would be controversial, prohibitively expensive, and difficult to enforce.

But issuing a drivers license has no such limitation; there are already very specific testing and experience requirements for gaining a drivers license, so this would only require a slight modification to existing infrastructure. Factor in physical factors such as height into the testing, and I see no problem with removing the age cutoff. Is there any good reason that a 15 year old capable of operating a vehicle and passing the requisite tests should not be allowed to drive? We already don't issue licenses to those who cannot pass the test, regardless of age. If an early bloomer wants to give it a shot, why not?

There's also the fact that starting earlier would more effectively indoctrinate children into good driving habits; no matter how young we start, there are likely to be bad habits learned from parents and relatives- the longer one waits to take drivers education, the larger this effect is. The sooner we start education the better we can mitigate this.

Perhaps we could raise the age for a 'full' drivers license to 18, and start drivers education at a much younger age in public schools. We'd then have a height and basic knowledge requirement for issuing a learners permit rather than an age cutoff, and grant a provisional license when the child has sufficient driving experience and can pass the requisite tests. This would have the effect of opening the possibility of driving to younger people, while still requiring them to be 18 to have unrestricted driving privileges. Seems a good compromise to me.

When I was 16 I was driving better then most of the other drivers on the road. Seriously, you don't need to be 18 years of age to have the mental capacity to learn how to press pedals and turn the wheel, it's really quite simple.

I think it would be cool if we went back to horses and buggies... but that's just me lol.

I've been driving for a while now, so it wouldn't affect me, but I still think sixteen is a good age to allow people to get their driver's license. Plus, sixteen year olds aren't the problem. It's these old farts going 10 mph on a 35+ road.

16 is good enough of a standered.