Teens on Board

From adolescence to adulthood, there are certain birthdays we tend to remember more than others.

There's the 18th birthday, when you're entitled to stay up past curfew or play the lottery.

There's the 21st birthday, the age at which you can drink alcohol legally.

Although not nearly as exciting, at 25 the rates on your car insurance drop.

But there's one age that's the most exciting of them all: turning 16, and getting your driver's license.

And while it is a common transition from childhood to teen life, safety experts on a national scale are questioning whether 16 is really old enough to get behind the wheel.

A report published by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that crashes involving teens would decrease significantly if they were licensed at a later age.

The study found that in New Jersey, where the driving age is 17, a rate of 4.4 per 100,000 teenage drivers were in fatal crashes from 1992-1996, compared with 20.7 per 100,000 in Connecticut, where the legal age is 16.

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