That said, youth need experience, we are not ready made adults and have to suffer the consequence of our mistakes to learn much of the time. Studies showing that adults make fewer poor decisions should realize a lot of that is because of the previous poor decisions that person had already made.

I wonder if an argument could be made that the observed phenomenon of extended adolescence is a direct result of the excessive sheltering of youth.

Which means that apparently by the time my brain actually matures next year, I'll have been able to vote for 7 years, hold all legal responsibilities for 7 years, drink legally for 7 years (outside the USA) and 4 years (inside the USA), and apply for a driver's license for 9 years. I'll have actually lived outside my parents' home for 7 years, been in a single steady relationship for 6 years, supported myself financially for 3 years and held a driver's license for 2 years.

Apparently my legal qualification and actual, demonstrated ability to behave like an adult - all of which is actually pretty normal for someone my age whom I know - either demonstrates unusually precocious brain maturity, or doesn't actually require brain maturity, or these "studies" are showing the effects of society's treatment of young people as barely-functional retards for ever-more-extended periods.

There are ways of addressing this that do not involve increasing the likelihood that you kill yourself, though. Better police in the neighborhood, better public transportation in the exurbs, better access to educational materials, better communication infrastructure, and so on.

These are, of course, harder solutions. It is certainly easier in terms of policy to simply roll the dice and acknowledge that those who survive the commute are more fit for society by virtue of not being dead.