Sir, – Bill Kee (Letters, November 11th) thinks all children should leave secondary school with a driving licence. There are several problems with this proposal.
First, a significant number of children leaving secondary school are just that, children, below the legal age limit to be allowed to get a driving licence.
Second, a driving license is issued only to those who have demonstrated their competence to drive a car safely. It is imperative that nobody should be allowed to operate such a dangerous machine who is not competent to do so. It cannot be assumed that all secondary school students will attain that competence. Indeed, there are many people who will never be competent to drive a car and should never get a licence.
Third, modern science tells us that the brain is not fully developed until around the age of 25, and the last part to be developed is the impulse control function which is crucially important to safe operation of a car. Rather than encourage more young people who are in reality too immature to drive, we should consider increasing the age limit in line with scientific knowledge. A first small step would be to increase it to the international and European norm of 18.
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Fourth, the notion that driving a car is an essential life skill is at least dubious. Quite apart from the prospect of self-driving cars, it is highly likely that private car use will plummet over the next few decades, as the incredible waste of resources of this way of getting around will become obvious, and more people, especially in urban areas, will find that life is better without cars.
Car use, especially among young people, is already declining markedly in many countries, including the US and the UK. – Yours, etc,
JONIVAR SKULLERUD,
Sandymount,
Dublin 4.