To repeat something from a while back:

http://www.arcamax.com/parents/s-81042-484462#sub20
(long interview with John Rosemond)

Pretty interesting comments about the driving age – here’s about one third of that section:

Q: What would the driving age be today if you could set it?

A: It wouldn’t be an age. It would be a high school diploma and after one year of service. I am a strong advocate of one year of mandatory service. Military, Peace Corps., Domestic Corps., Salvation Army — I don’t care which one — just some service to your fellow man. And
then, you get a driver’s license after you have shed a little bit of your self–centeredness. And in Europe, you don’t see kids behind the wheels of cars. I drove around Italy for 3 weeks and never once did I see a kid behind the wheel of a car.

Here’s the rest of what he said about the driving age:

“Another thing I say to parents, if someone said, here is a jar of peanut butter and if you feed this jar to your child, there is a 1 in 10,000 chance your child will be seriously damaged by this peanut butter. Would you feed the peanut butter to the child? Parents go
‘no!’ Would you feed it to your child if the chances were 1 in 100,000? Parents again say ‘no.’ Then why are you letting your child drive a car? And you know what people say, people ’say 16 is the
driving law, John.’ But 16 was established when there were not many
cars on the road, when cars were not fast and powerful, and the only times children were driving was to go on errands to help their parents with
something. They were not driving recreationally in the 30s. They were
taking the family pick-up truck into town and picking up 20 pounds of feed. I just look at today’s parents and I go ‘What are you thinking!’ They think that just because it is legal, you should let your child do it.”

(He’s also said that teens were a lot more mature and responsible in the Depression and in earlier decades than today – another reason why 16 is too young to drive. He got a lot of “badly written” hate mail for that – some of it assigned by a teacher.)