Dear Editor:

Everyone has heard the stereotypes regarding teen drivers: they are careless, use cell phones, are inexperienced, etc. These stereotypes exist partly because these adolescents are not taught properly how to drive. Well, there is something we can do to change that. Driver’s education should be offered as an elective in all high schools.

Car crashes continue to be the number one killer of teens in America. This is due to the relative inexperience of new drivers. This can be countered by making sure teens learn from licensed instructors, rather than parents or peers who may not have the same insight into this field. Learning correct driving technique will result in fewer car crashes among teens.

This is not to say that parents are bad drivers. However, many parents don’t have the time in their busy schedules to take their kids out driving. In Pennsylvania, teens are supposed to log fifty hours of driving experience before taking their driving test. After asking some peers, I discovered that only about three out of ten teens actually do this. With Driver’s Ed. as an elective, more teens would gain the experience needed to learn how to drive.

Some might argue against this, seeing as the school would have to take out an enormous liability on the students’ safety. This is actually the opposite of what would happen. You see, with this new elective taught by certified instructors, the students would be safer, and they would learn as well as practice proper safety technique.