Word: drunks
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Eighteen- to 21-year olds did not have the highest rate of involvement in drunk driving accidents. In 1983, the last year before the new law, 21- to 24-year-olds had the highest rate; 37 year olds had the highest likelihood of dying in an alcohol related crash. If practical considerations were truly the determining factor, the drinking age should have been raised to at least 24, if not higher. Twenty-one happened to be a politically expedient age. Before the early 1970's, the drinking age corresponded with the voting age, then...
...effect. According to a Congressional study, alcohol-related fatalities among the 18-24 age group are down 13% through 1991. That sounds good at first, but when you consider that these same years have witnessed the implementation of compulsory seat-belt laws, the air-bag, and stricter enforcement of drunk driving laws, the effect seems much less dramatic...
When you add to that the orgy of uplifters preaching the dangers of drunk driving in ad-council commercials, movies-of-the-week and after-school specials, and the introduction of the idea of "designated drivers" (by the Harvard School of Public Health in 1985), the effect of raising the drinking age seems dismal...
...relies on another crucial assumption: 18-to-21 year olds who drive after drinking are more likely to crash mainly because they are inexperienced drivers. Any alcohol-related impairment thus affects them more drastically. But a 1990 study by two economists showed that the relevant statistical link was between drunk-driving fatalities and drinking experience. Their conclusion: At best, raising the drinking age seems primarily to postpone fatalities...
Instead of a higher drinking age, the data indicate that a lower drinking age combined with a higher driving age would best reduce drunk driving fatalities. Plus, it's a lot harder to be an underage driver than an underage drinker. If practical considerations are paramount, as MADD would have it, this is the clear solution. This way, all new drivers would already be experienced drinkers...