Parents should pause before handing over keys

Have you ever noticed this phenomenon? Once a kid turns 16, everyone in the world seems to be getting a car.

Apparently, when our daughters were passing their driver’s license exams, we were bucking the trend.

And last week’s headlines reinforced our decision.

Perhaps you’ll have a 15-year-old begging for a car one day. If you’re inclined to say “no,” here are a few arguments to bolster your position.

Argument No. 1: Jessica Napier’s family bought an extra car, a 1993 Geo Storm, as her 16th birthday approached. She turned the magic age, and though her intermediate driver’s license prohibited her from piling her friends into the car, she did it anyway.

Two of them climbed on the back, and when they refused to hop off, she pulled into the street. As she turned a corner, one of them fell off, hitting her head so badly she nearly died.

Yet Napier asked her friends to cover for her and drove away from the scene of the accident.

In Spokane County Juvenile Court earlier this month Jessica was sentenced to vehicular assault and failure to remain at the scene of an accident.

This week she faces sentencing: up to 60 days of detention and up to 300 hours of community service.

As for the victim, 14-year-old Amaryssa Byers, she’s lucky to be alive. Her condition was so critical just after the accident that her parents had her baptized and her father wrote her eulogy.

Moral of the story: Enveloped in the exhilaration of freedom, 16-year-olds can make astoundingly poor choices.

Argument No. 2: About those poor choices: Brain researchers have discovered that a 16-year-old’s prefrontal cortex hasn’t fully matured yet. That’s the area that handles reasoning, helps him weigh the consequences of his actions and curbs a kid’s wild ideas.

In fact, Dr. Jay Giedd, a researcher with the National Institute of Mental Health, estimates that kids’ brains don’t fully develop until age 25. Coincidentally, that’s the age when Hertz and Avis will finally rent a car to your child.

Giedd, in an interview with Time magazine last year, joked, “Avis must have some pretty sophisticated neuroscientists.”

A study from Temple University also reveals what any seasoned parent could tell you: Teens make much lousier decisions when they travel in packs than they do on their own.

Moral of the story: If Avis and Hertz and the best brain researchers in the country agree, it may be true: The average 16-year-old’s brain just isn’t ready yet.

Argument No. 3: Car ownership saps cash that might better be spent on college tuition.

The true cost of owning a car goes well beyond the purchase price, once you add in depreciation, insurance, taxes, gasoline and maintenance. A Web site called Edmunds.com estimates that the true cost of buying a $8,000 used Honda Civic adds up to $20,530 over five years.

College tuition, despite its rapid climb in recent years, remains an investment that pays off over the student’s lifetime. College graduates earn higher salaries than nongraduates do.

Moral of the story: If you’re inclined to save for college, you’re likely on the right track.

I’d like to report we tapped this accumulated wisdom and examined the research before we made our decision. We didn’t. Instead, we remembered our own parents springing for college tuition more readily than they did car payments. We examined our bank accounts. And we found other ways to celebrate our daughters’ 16th birthdays.

Knock on a dashboard, but the decision still seems right. It may have been sheer luck, but we got through those years accident-free.

These days, I turn to the Zits comic strip in this newspaper for my favorite insights on the teenage brain.

Cartoonists Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman must have a neuroscientist on speed dial. They frequently draw the perfect set of wheels for 15-year-old Jeremy and his friend Hector: A rusted VW van parked in the back yard on blocks.

Should Jeremy one day actually turn 16, I’m betting the cartoonists wait awhile before they draw an extra car just for him.