English speaking

main discussion- advantages of driving at 17

In the uk the legal age to drive a car is 17 and whilst you are a learner,you must be acompanied by a driving instructor or someone over the age of 21 who has had their full driving licence for at leat 3 years.
You are only allowed to drive a car if you hold a provisional licence which you can apply for from being 15 years and 9 months old.
To get a full Uk driving licence you must pass both the theory test and the practical test, and you must pass the theory test before taking the practical as this ensures that you know how to spot hazzards and that you know the rules of the roads.
In the uk the practical driving test lasts around 40 minutes and it allows you to demonstrate your driving skills to the examiner by demonstrating manouvers, stoping and starting the car on hills, using dual carridgeways, roundabouts, stopping at traffic lights, over taking parked veichles, parking in car parks and parallel parking and generally using the roads safely.
By demonstrating to the examiner that you can do all of the things required on your test you then pass your driving test and can apply for a ful driving licence.

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hi there, today i am going to discuss the reasons why i believe that the driving age should be 17 and what the advantages are of learning to drive at a younger age.
i am also going to discuss the opposing opinion of why the driving age should be raised and why i disagree with its valid, yet not so strong points.

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Insurance premiums are quite pricy for new driviers and the younger you are the more your insurance costs depending on how powerful your car is.
The insurance is higher as you are less experienced and therefore are more likely to have an accident no matter if you are a new driver at 17 or 30.
However, there are many ways to bring insurance costs down such as getting the 'black box' which measures how you drive and at what times. This makes new drivers more aware of the way that they drive and is more likely to make them drive safely.
there is also an advantage to learning to drive younger as the brain finds it easier to adapt and to learn new skills quickly.

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As much as i firmly believe that the driving age should stay at 17 for those reasons, there are many people who oppose my opinion.
One of the main factors why people belive that the driving age should be raised is due to the fact that supposedly "most" accidents are caused by young drivers. However according to statistics only 25% of young new drivers counter for all accidents that occcur on the roads.
since the last count up in september 2014 there are approximatley 45.5 million people who hold a uk driving licence although this figure will have risen recently. therefore meaning that only 11.3 million of these people are young drivers who cause accidents which in prospective is a lot, but not that high a figure when you think about it.
A powerful argument suggests that by raising the driving age to 18 would cut the annoual road deaths by 1000, as much as this is a large amount of suffering being cut, is this really going to make a huge imapct?

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I believe that you are just as likely to be involved in a car accident as the next person, no mater if you are a new inexperienced driver at 17 or 30 or if you have had your licence for the past 20 years.
I feel that in the Uk we are tested extensively, More than other countires in order to be allowed to legally drive on the road alone and that raising the driving age would't see much of a difference in road fatalities caused by young drivers.

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