The legal ages for voting and driving should be revised on the basis of scientific evidence, researchers say.

Changes in the brain that occur during adolescence suggest that teenagers as young as 15 may be capable of the mature judgment and self-control required to drive a car responsibly or to vote in general elections, the researchers say.

A study pinpoints the “growing mismatch” between the age at which teenagers become biologically mature and the age at which they are considered to be adults in legal and social terms.

The gap between childhood and the acceptance of adult responsibilities makes puberty a “high-risk period” in which rates of suicides, teenage pregnancy, eating disorders and substance abuse are flourishing.

Such trends might be reversed if teenagers were allowed to assume adult roles earlier, requiring a revision of existing age limitations, the researchers said. Such revisions could include lowering the legal age for voting and driving, or starting sex education lessons earlier.

Russell Viner, a paediatrician from the Institute of Child Health, University College London, co-author of the study, said that while children start becoming biologically mature in their early teens, adolescence could now last more than a decade until they became financially independent of their parents or started families, he said.

“We need to rethink all the age limits for young people and what we let them do. The age of 18 is enshrined as the traditional age at which you become an adult but there is no sound biological basis for this.

“Despite numerous efforts to reduce levels of obesity, sexually transmitted infections, teenage pregnancy and smoking, such risk factors to health have either increased or stayed constant since 1970,” Dr Viner said.

“Success in promoting adolescent health might ultimately rely on the extent to which teenagers can assume adult roles closer to the age at which they are biologically equipped to do so. Given our knowledge of the brain and how it develops, some limits may need to go up, some down, but to suggest that someone can start learning calculus at 15 or 16 and not have the capacity to vote seems to be contradictory.”

Dr Viner made his comments at a press conference to mark today’s publication of a new series of The Lancet medical journal that focuses on adolescent health. “Evidence suggests that 50 per cent of young people start having sex by the age of 15, so current laws are effectively pushing them into criminal behaviour. While I would not be in favour of lowering the age further for child protection it is important to recognise this is happening. It should arguably prompt us to start sex education programmes much earlier.”

Nearly half of the world’s population is under 25 years old but the young face more complex challenges to their development than their parents did, according to information in The Lancet.

Dr Viner said that the Government’s plan to increase the minimum legal age for buying cigarettes to 18 from October was a good example of a revision to the law made on public health grounds, but that other laws should take account of key changes to the brain which focused and increased its power for thought during puberty. He added that social factors may play a part in a teenager’s decision-making.

Dr Viner, also said that the boom in binge drinking among teenagers also indicated that the legal age for buying alcohol should be raised to 21. He claimed that the solution was to raise the legal limit for buying alcohol to that in the US where figures for young drinkers have fallen for 20 years.

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