During the 1970’s reports showed that teenage car accidents increased in states where the MLDA had been lowered from 21 years old. This in turn prompted Congress to help alleviate the problem by passing the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984. Although the federal government has no constitutional basis for setting a MLDA, it has
An average of 17,000 individuals die each year in drink driving related deaths. The numbers have come down slightly , for example, in 2010 10,228 individuals died from drink driving related fatalities, drink driving continues to be an enormously important public safety issue. What is more, drinking and driving is strongly correlated with youth. After the age of 25, the drink driving rates rapidly decrease. It seems quite plausible that were alcohol to be illegal for those under the age of 18, the 15.1% of 18 to 20 year olds who drink before getting behind the wheel would decrease significantly.
Twenty-thousand young lives saved. Twenty-thousand families kept whole. Over the past 20 years, the number of 15 to 20 year olds killed in alcohol-related traffic crashes has been cut in half. The number of 15 to 20 year olddrinking drivers involved in fatal crashes also has been cut in half. This does not even take into account the huge number of drownings, burns, sexual assaults, suicides and homicides that have been averted by the "21" law.
Lowering the drinking age to 18 will lead to under age drinking in bars and nightclubs, which are known to be unsafe environments. Studies have shown that fatal car accident happen after nightclub and bar outings. About 1900 people under the age of 21 die in car accidents related to underage drinking every year.
He also said, “Drunk driving is a major cause of highway deaths. Drunk drivers account for one half of all the deaths caused on the roads in the United States.” Of those drunk drivers according to Cohalan, males between the ages of 16 and 24 are involved in 50 percent of highway deaths and 36 percent of traffic accidents, but are only 19 percent of licensed drivers. Young male adults between the ages of 16 and 24 are at high risk for motor vehicle accidents, “like a number of folks in the audience,” Cohalan said. The life expectancy of these young male adults has decreased in the last 20 years particularly due to drinking and driving, said Cohalan. And according to Cohalan, because the drinking age was recently raised to 21, lives will be saved.
One right is that they can buy tobacco. Tobacco is a very dangerous substance that kills over 435,000 people per year compared to the 85,000 deaths caused by alcohol. Also an 18 year old can vote in the United States. It seems strange that the government thinks that a person is mature enough to vote in this country but not mature enough to have a drink. There are definitely people who are as young as 15 years old who have more maturity than some 50 year olds.
A fact that caught my attention was one half of those injury related visits each year were due to drugs and alcohol. These injuries included opiates, cocaine and drug alcohol mixed together as well as many others. A fact that was stated which I found very interesting is “95 % of all adults who depend on or are abusing alcohol started drinking before the age of 21”, which in the next paragraph brings me to an incident which happened to an underage drinker. There was a 20 year old boy who decided
A Social Problem In America alone people take about two hundred and thirty three trips in cars each year, of all these, one out of two thousand of these trips are being taken by drunk or drugged individuals. Statistics show that one of three traffic tragedies involve drunk drivers. Approximately nine thousand eight hundred seventy eight people died in car crashes in the year 2011. Due to these high numbers it was determined that this was a social problem in which the whole nation should pay close attention
Everyone in the car was under the age of twenty one and they all died. Should the legal drinking age be lowered from twenty one years old? An author from the New York Times examines the idea of lowering the current drinking age to combat binge drinking in college. In his editorial titled “Colleges and Binge Drinking,” the author reveals to readers that “a group of about 130 college presidents from some of the most prestigious colleges in the United States (U.S.) such as Duke, Dartmouth,
Riley Bartlett 5/17/11 Every year thousands of underage teens are dying from alcohol related accidents. Around 28% of fatal traffic crashes involving teens are alcohol related. Does the United States keep the drinking age 21, and enforce it strongly or lower the drinking age and teach teenagers to drink in moderation not binge drinking? Even though the Legal drinking age is 21, not everyone believes it should stay that age. Prohibition failed in 1920-1933 which shows that strict regulation of drinking is counterproductive, unenforceable, and leads to an increase in legal underground activity.