The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimated a 13% decrease in car fatalities in 1975-2008 saving approximately 27,052 lives since then. Not only the cons of lowering the Legal Drinking Age, our country does not support the idea overall. A 2007 Gallup poll showed that 77% of Americans would vote against the act of lowering the minimum drinking age. Through the years Americans have shown support for the minimum age being 21. Bar graph showing 77% of Americans opposed to lowering the drinking age to 18 nationwide, polled July 12-15, 2007.
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
The drinking age should not be lowered to 18. Lowering the drinking age from 21 years old to 18 years old could lead to an increase in dangerous behavior such as drunken driving and car accidents, risk of developing alcoholism and people under the age of 21 do not fully understand the dangers of alcohol. A teenage driver and alcohol is a dangerous combination. Drinking and driving accidents are the number one cause of death among teenagers. “Traffic deaths from drunken driving have fallen steadily, with those involving teenagers 16 to 19 declining by 39.1 percent from 1982 to 1990, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)”.
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.
Now, in the past few years, some cities and states have started banning smoking in all public places even, in some cases, bars. [8] People worry about what smoking does to them, well I'm here to say that cars produce more harmful chemicals into the air then smoking does. We cannot ban everything just because we disagree with it. As for the non-smokers worrying about their health as they go to the bar and drink, you will not be hurt by a night in a Smokey room just as you will not harm your body forever by a night of a few drinks. 8 Senator Rodney Ellis; “A smoke-free Texas?” State senator proposes statewide smoking ban, January 18, 2007, Austin American-statesman.
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.
Debate about lowering drinking age Lowering the drinking age to 18 would give legal adults the rights they deserve. A woman is old enough to sign a legal contract, get married and buy property, why can’t she drink a beer to celebrate? A man can do same thing and train to shoot M-16s so why can’t they drink to cope? Allowing alcohol into people’s system at a younger age will teach them lessons, such as the right way to consume alcohol at the good amounts at a time verses over drinking and getting drunk then having a hangover the next morning. Why should one be trained to shoot a gun at age 18 which can directly end one’s life?
Erin Young English 101 Online Hour – October 22, 2010 The Drinking Age Debate Too Young to have fun is an online database article discussing the drinking age. In 1984 the Reagan administration ordered all the states to rise their drinking age to 21 or loose 10% of their federal highway funds. In some states, that would mean losing up to $50 million dollars. They purposed this change thinking that it would somehow curve underage drinking but it only made it worse causing criminal records to rise, even though the fatalities among underage drunk drivers declined by 13%. I believe this article supported my decision about lowering the drinking age because the article insinuated that by raising the drinking age, more deaths occurred as well
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.
"Since the expiration of the federal Assault Weapons Ban two years ago, there has been a significant rise in violent crime and homicides. Passing an assault weapons ban must be one of the top domestic safety priorities of the 110th Congress." FBI statistics show that "assault weapons" are used in less than 2% of gun crimes; they simply are not the preferred gun of criminals. Criminals use what is readily available to them, they do not go out and spend $1000 on a gun that they can't conceal and probably don't know how to operate. Ten months after the last Assault Weapon Ban lapsed in 2004, violent crime had dropped