Word: drunkenness
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Dissenting Justice Marie Garibaldi said that it could open the door to "speculative and subjective" legal judgments. But Chief Justice Robert N. Wilentz wrote that society has now decided it must "do whatever is required ... to stop the senseless loss inflicted by drunken drivers." Washington seems to agree. Last week Congress approved and sent to the President a bill that will cut federal highway funds for states that do not adopt a minimum drinking...
...early '70s, when teen-agers were being drafted for military service in Viet Nam, more than half of all state legislatures lowered the minimum to 18 or 19. Since 1976, however, at least 20 states have voted to raise their drinking age. Last fall a presidential commission on drunken driving strongly recommended a uniform drinking age of 21. But since autumn, only four additional states have boosted age requirements; 19 states have considered and rejected such legislation...
Raising the drinking age, supporters contend, would save as many as 1,250 of the 5,000 teen-age lives lost each year in auto accidents caused by intoxication, and would also cut into the toll of some 20,000 older drunken-driving victims. A study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety of accident patterns in nine states that raised the drinking age shows an average 28% drop in fatal nighttime crashes involving under-21 age groups. Polls show 77% of Americans favor a drinking age of 21. Sums up New Jersey Congressman James Florio: "The 21-year...
...Institute study, for example, varied wildly among the states examined: from 6% to 75% in eight states and none at all in Montana. In New York, where the drinking age was raised from 18 to 19 in December 1982, 18-year-olds were involved in about 42% fewer fatal drunken-driving accidents in 1983 than in 1982; but the rate for drinking-age 19-year-olds fell by 29%, suggesting that both declines may have been caused by an outside factor like more stringent law enforcement. Furthermore, argue critics of the pro-21 measure, foreclosing the privileges of the more...
...Founded by Lightner in May 1980, the same month her 13-year-old daughter was killed by a drunken driver...