The following appeared in a letter to the school board in the town of Centerville.

“All students should be required to take the driver’s education course at Centerville High School. In the past two years several accidents in and around Centerville have involved teenage drivers. Since a number of parents in Centerville have complained that they are too busy to teach their teenagers to drive, some other instruction is necessary to ensure that these teenagers are safe drivers. Although there are two driving schools in Centerville, parents on a tight budget cannot afford to pay for driving instruction. Therefore an effective and mandatory program sponsored by the high school is the only solution to this serious problem.”

The letter to the school board in the town of Centerville expresses a grave concern about teenage drivers. Looking at the record of accidents in the past two years where teenage drivers have been involved, it says that there should be a compulsory driver’s education in the school. It further says that parents are too busy to take up this responsibility and this increases the need of the school to instruct the teenagers. Moreover, parents cannot afford to send their wards to driving schools and the only solution to the problem is to have compulsory and effective driver’s education in school. The argument presented in the letter sounds logical but, at a closer look, it has certain loopholes.

The letter does mention that most of the accidents involve teenage drivers but whether these teenage divers have been given driver’s education or not is not mentioned. This means that there are equal chances of their being trained in driving as that of their not being trained. Since the argument does not mention anything about the status of driver’s training of the teenagers involved in the accident, it can be said that the argument is blaming all teenagers without investigating into the matter. In such a case, there is no need of compulsory driver’s education since it has already been imparted.

In case of accidents, you cannot pinpoint the fault of any one person. It would be incorrect to blame the teenagers completely for the accidents. Since there are more than one person involved, the accident could have occurred because of either of the two. It is likely that the teenager involved is not to blame for the accident in most of the cases. The fact that most of the accidents involved teenagers could be just a coincidence. The argument in the letter simply puts two and two together to blame the teenagers in general for the accidents, which can be called unfair.

Driver’s education being a compulsory program in schools is a good idea but it is not completely feasible. If parents find it expensive, it is so for the school authorities as well. Teaching one or two teenagers is one thing and teaching the whole school is another. It involves a lot of money to introduce such a program where the fees for the instructors will have to be paid by the school besides arranging for the instruction to be carried out. The school will in turn levy the money from the students by increasing their monthly fees. This will again burden the parents who cannot afford to send their children to driving schools. In both the cases, it is the parents who will have to bear the charges of instructing their kids. Therefore, the suggestion made in the letter is not a solution of the problem because it does not look into the problems that will be created by the school’s running such a program.

Lastly, there is no guarantee of how successful such a program will be. If it will help in making teenagers more careful drivers and prevent accidents is something that one needs to wait and watch. Teenagers are aggressive and hyperactive by nature. It is possible that even after imparting such an education, they commit blunders in a rush and it leads to accidents. Hence, what is said in the letter can be negated completely and it calls for an alternate and better solution.