Should Adolescents Be Considered Adults Essay

Throughout adolescent's lives, they have been told that they can half drive at 15, drive independently at 16, can drive people at 17, can vote and sign legal documents at 18, and then can drink at 21. One thing they have not been told is when are they considered full adults in society; when should adolescents be considered adults? Adolescents should be considered adults at the age of 18, which means that they should have received all their rights by the age of 18.

Teenagers have earned all of their adult responsibilities by the age of 18, except drinking. According to Edgar Snyder, a lawyer graduated from Pennsylvania University and University of Pittsburgh School of Law, there are 11 million underaged drinkers in the United States. Snyder also states that one-third of all the deaths of people from the age of 16-20 is driving deaths. Teenagers are already drinking by the time they reach the age of 18. Legalizing it would mean that teenagers would be more responsible about where and when they are drinking.

Teens get a Graduated Drivers License (GDL) at the age of 15 and a half, and then they have to prove that they are ready to handle driving by themselves and …show more content…
Scientifically, this might be reasonable, but giving a person all their rights all at once at one time might not be a good decision because they have lived 25 years of their life without all of this legal responsibilities. Increasing the age to 25 would also increase DUI and underaged drinking in the U.S. Currentlly, underaged drinking is already a problem with reference to DUI, but with statistics from Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), underaged DUI will go from 10% to about 45%. This will only increase the problem. People also cannot say that they should increase it to 25 because of the percentage of DUI, but the age range of 25 to 44 is about 53% of all