Imagine you’ve just turned 16 and the law prohibits you from getting a driver’s license for two more years, when you should only be excited about smoking your first legal cigarette.

Last December, Illinois State Representative John D’Amico (D-Chicago) proposed raising the legal driving age from 16 to 18 years old and the age for a learner’s permit from 15 to 17 at the Illinois General Assembly.

D’Amico’s concerns resided with the well-being of adolescents and the maturity level that is needed to safely operate a motor vehicle.

Illinois State Representative Bob Pritchard (R-70) has concerns about pushing back the driving age.

“I don’t think we can take the idea that all teenagers are irresponsible and to not let them drive until they’re 18 or 20 or whatever,” Pritchard said.

Pritchard said a stronger support for driver’s education classes in high schools could better solve the problem of inattentive teen drivers.

“Providing driver’s education in high school is an issue a number of districts are trying to look at,” Pritchard said. “It’s very costly. It’s about 500 dollars a student in sub-districts.”

Pritchard said the states’ priorities for students learning to drive include formal instruction, such as driver’s education, parental companionship in initial behind-the-wheel training, banning usage of cell phones while driving and restrictions on how many passengers are allowed in the vehicle.

Pritchard expects negative reaction from affected communities.

“The culture will not expense teenagers to be drivers,” Pritchard said.

“It’d be a difficult stretch for citizens to accept. For us to pass the state law to say they can no longer drive is going to be very much met with anger by the citizens, by the parents and certainly by the teenagers,” he said.

D’Amico’s proposal got mixed reactions from DeKalb High School students. Junior Sarah Hittle loads her schedule with extracurricular activities. The inconvenience of depending on parents for rides was the basis of her negative reaction.

“When you’re a teenager you have to get around to a lot of places, like if you have school functions or sports,” Hittle said. “It would be a lot of hassle because you’d have to depend on your parents to drive you places more.”

Hittle said adolescent maturity levels shouldn’t be the focus of the state legislature.

“If you raise the age to 18, you’re still going to have the people driving who are inexperienced at 18,” she said. “The accidents are just going to happen later as opposed to earlier.”

Fellow classmate Andrew Waite sat quietly next to Hittle outside of their chemistry class. Waite’s opinion differed.

“There’s pros and cons to it,” Waite said. “If you raise it to 18, it would technically save families on gas, so you don’t have to waste your money on gas.”

He said raising the driving age would cut back on the amount of incompetents speeding around.

“The kids would act more mature, because they want it more,” he said.

“It would be a step up because they’d have to really work for their license. If kids started acting right, they wouldn’t be such bad drivers.”

Hittle agreed with the last portion of Waite’s views. “You’d be in college, getting your life together,” she said, “You wouldn’t be doing any of that drag racing.”