If you raise the driving age to 18, more parents will not take the responsibility to teach their children to drive. Being 18 and not being able to drive makes life very difficult in all but the areas with the best public transportation.
Come to think of it, that is partially why I think the drinking age should be lowered. Parents may be more inclined to teach their children to drink responsibly if it is legal for them to drink while they are still in the parents care.
I don’t see any particular reason why it should be. Drinking and driving are two entirely different things, with different effects on people and society. No physician would prescribe the same drug for all ailments, and in the same way, there’s no reason why we MUST set the same age limit for “everything.”
So make the age of majority (including drinking) 21.
As I said, I don’t care WHICH age you choose, just be consistent.
And, yes, an 18-year old with a car can kill someone. An 18-year old with a vote can elect George Bush*.
Someone who can’t be trusted (by virtue of age) with a beer can’t be trusted with a ballot.
I’m no developmental psychologist but from what I understand that is what the science says. Do you really think it reasonable to refute a generality because of the experience of a single person? I assure you that science doesn’t operate by such a principle.
Personally, I have always had a problem with the “correlation=causation” aspects of the drinking age debate. Drunk teenagers have a lot of wrecks–let’s protect them from this evil acohol that is causing these wrecks. Well, in my experience, sober teenagers have (and cause) a lot of wrecks, too. I think the problem is that new drivers don’t drive very well.
Also, in my younger days, there was a period of about 2 years where I got drunk every night and drove about 7 miles home in that state. Over that time, I never once had a wreck. So, if alcohol causes accidents, then what happened to me?
Even worse, though, I do not like the abdication of personal responsibility that seems to be at the core of this. Is alcohol responsible for driving safely, or is the person responsible? Seems to me that each person is responsible for taking due care not to hurt everyone else on the road–and for some people, that may mean that they should not ever drive after any amount of drinking. For others, it may mean they should keep the radio turned off. Maybe there are some people who just shouldn’t drive (I have a sister-in-law who comes to mind). Maybe if we want people to be better drivers, we should consider making the driver license tests harder?
For the record, I have two young daughters, and I cannot imagine too many things that would be more nightmarish than for one of them to be hurt or killed in a car accident. And if someone swerved across the road and hurt one of my children, do you think I would give a shit whether he was drunk or was too interested in listening to radio? Either way, he’s responsible for what he did.
We keep letting the government make all these decisions for people and one of the most noticeable effects is that no one feels responsible for their own decisions. If I have a wreck, blame the last guy who served me a beer. If I get fat, blame McDonald’s. If I get cancer, blame the people who made my cigarettes. The more we pass responsiblity from ourselves to the government or to other people, the less appealing I expect the resulting society to be.
-VM
I’ll just admit that I did the most stupidest things when I was in the 18-21 year old range (1981-1984). I was drinking and driving in this “invincible” age range; many times over those three years and could have easily gotten into an accident and was just plain lucky that I didn’t. I wised up later in my years that this is going to kill me or someone else if I kept doing this. By my own experience, I have to say “no” to lowering it.
Certainly the factor of being new drivers is part of it. However, the evidence is out there - lowering the drinking age was followed by a rise in drunk driving accidents by the 18-21 age group, and raising the drinking age back to 21 resulted in a lowering of the number of drunk driving accidents in the same age group. Certainly it is not going to eliminate drunk driving by that age group, nor accidents caused by drivers in that age group who aren’t drunk - but it is a significant change, and the combined correlations does indicate, to me at least, a certain causation between them.
You were lucky. As an individual that can happen quite often - for a population, counting on luck will never work. During that time, I’d go so far as to assume you knew other people who were also driving drunk, too. Did any of them share your impressive record?
Fine, we can make the driver’s liscening requirements more stringent, remove driving priveleges for any accident, or speeding violations. Even make it possible for sufficient complaints about a car’s driving habits to cause a liscense removal. Until, and unless, something like that happens, I’m going to continue to be in favor of keeping the drinking age at 21.
<snarky question alert>
Are you going to suggest they can drink and drive, since it was so safe for you?
</snarky question over>
I seriously doubt the science says that and I’ll welcome peer reviewed theories that show rampant drinking amongst under 21 year olds is primarily the because it is not being allowed.
I knew many parents and my parents in fact were very permissive of under age drinking.
Personally I never had any trouble drinking under age as fake ids were a dime a dozen and also many merchants simply sell to under age persons because that = money and they usually don’t get caught.
So I’m not even sure there is much of a “not allowed” aspect to drinking.
Also of course alcohol is somewhat addicting so that’s probably the biggest factor as to why people who drink a lot feel they need that alcohol to have fun, not because mom and dad tell you it’s wrong.
There’s also probably a lot of British University students who would disagree with you, I’ve partied many times in British university towns and despite the fact almost the entire student population can legally drink (barring some really smart youngsters) that doesn’t seem to put much of a damper on the drinking.
Also unsubstantiated generalities should be refuted at all points, not just based on anectdotal evidence.
My only time that may have driven drunk (I say may because I don’t want to incriminate myself) was DIRECTLY BECAUSE
Why? You said:
You claim it’s absurd, but I gave you a perfectly valid reason why it’s not absurd, which you have not addressed.
Why? What is your reasoning for asserting that all things must be allowed at the same age?
Um, that’s why I added the part in parentheses.
My only time that may have driven drunk was DIRECTLY BECAUSE of the 21 yr drinking age.
Instead of beng able to drink responsibly, I was denied then when it was available later that night, I made up for lost time, but then it was time to leave.
I consider it an act of civil disobedence to an unjust law and have no guilt about my actions.
The problem is that people need to drive in order to make a living, buy food, etc. If we raise the driving age to 21, it might very well cut down on fatalities, but only at the cost of affecting people’s very ability to survive. Drinking, on the other hand, is not a necessity at all. Besides which, if your theory is correct, raising the driving age to 21 would only result in 21 year-olds being new drivers. You have to be a new driver at some point in your life. Yes, drinking and young drivers are both factors that increase accidents, but the utility of allowing 18 year-olds to drive is far higher than the utility of allowing 18 year-olds to drink, and therefore more easily justified.
You were incredibly lucky.
In general, discriminating on the basis of age is considered a Bad Thing when applied to legal adults.
By the way, I’m 47, so I don’t have a personal interest in this issue.
Are you sure the evidence is out there? I seem to recall seeing evidence “out there” that said the opposite. I will say this: Between the ages of 18-21, I did ALL of my drinking in a car. Didn’t have much choice–they wouldn’t let me into bars.
Even if you do find this proof, I’m not all that impressed to learn that bad drivers are even worse when they are drunk–and good drivers should be punished for it. My point is this: You can be driving in a perfectly safe manner, get randomly stopped and breathalyzed, and then go to jail for driving drunk. At the same time, you can be driving recklessly, weaving in and out of your lane, pass a breathalyzer and be allowed to continue on your way. Also, the way the statistics are manipulated, you can be driving drunk but safely and a sober driver can cross the road and kill you, and it will go down in the books as an accident “caused” by alcohol.
To my way of thinking, the proper focus is one what people are doing with their cars, not theorizing on some external cause, whether it is alcohol or cell phones.
No, I was not. I was careful, even when I was drunk. Of course, I haven’t been in a major accident driving sober, either. That’s over 20 years of driving. My point is this: I am a safer driver drunk than my sister-in-law is driving sober. Why are we focusing on alcohol?
Yes. Most of them. In fact, I remember seeing some research not long ago that indicated the lion’s share of drunk-driving accidents involve a small percentage of the drunk drivers. In particular, a shockingly high number of fatal accidents involved a driver who had already had previous accidents while driving drunk. I’m telling you, it’s not so much the alcohol as it is the person drinking it.
Absolutely, that way, even if nothing good is accomplished, we can at least say that we did something.
Honestly, I am more concerned with their driving ability in general, just as I am more interested in teaching them how to make good decisions than I am in making their decisions for them.
Just to make this a little less pointlessly contentious, I will concede that any person is a less skilled driver when drunk than when sober, but I don’t feel that in and of itself justifies the heavyhanded rules that we are making about it. According to the law, I should be in jail right now, even though I haven’t hurt anyone exept myself. My sister-in-law still has her driver license (and her dad keeps buying cars for her) and she is a danger to everyone on or near a road. She shouldn’t be driving sober. But the danger she puts everyone else in is perfectly okay; whereas, it seems clear that my behavior was not putting others in danger, yet was illegal. Am I recommending it? Not really.
What I am saying is that the drinking age is, to me, ridiculously arbitrary. If we put half as much effort into stopping generally bad drivers, we would get 3 or 4 times the benefit. The way to do that? Punish people who have or cause wrecks by doing stupid shit, whether they are drunk or sober at the time. As far as this point goes, I merely feel that a focus on drinking laws is pointless.
In addition, at least where I grew up, the 18 year olds were going to get drunk, the only thing the law accomplished was that it affected where this drunkenness happened. For me–and pretty much all of my peer group–being kicked out of every legitimate place to drink had the effect of ensuring that we did all of our drinking in the only place left available to us: Our cars. It is for this reason that I think that the laws are harmful, because in the fairly large number of cases that I witnessed, it actually did more harm than good.
-VM
Just to be clear, I am not suggesting a change to the age at which we hand out driver licenses. I am suggesting that–if cutting down on accidents is really your goal–it will be better achieved by making them harder to get.
btw, I don’t get any particular utility from 18 year-old drivers or drunken drivers. You say that 18 year-olds need to work. I assume that this is because they are adults and are responsible for feeding themselves. I would say that they are also responsible for decisions they make, such as driving drunk, driving sober, and firing guns at others. I think they should be allowed to by guns and they should be allowed to drink alcohol. They should not be allowed to shoot innocent strangers or hit them with their cars.
Otherwise, see my previous post. Something tells me, we are bordering on playing dueling research and, to be honest, my interest in this topic does not extend so far as to the work such a level of debate would entail. I have made my arguments–you may consider or ignore them as it suits you.
-VM
I propose raising the driving age to 21!!
The idea of “drinking ages” and “driving ages” is kind of shakey in my opinion. People should be judged on their responsibility, and everyone should be responsible for themselves and know what they should and should not do. Not everyone is the same, and some people are more responsible and would be better entrusted with responsibility than others.
I was driving at 14. Had I taken my driving test then, I’d have passed, and would have probably been a better driver than most drivers on the road in general. I couldn’t, though, because it wasn’t legally allowed.
This said, we have the concept of “majority” in this country and there’s no reason at all to change this. We can’t very well have ten-year-olds buying alcohol and five-year-olds driving, just because children don’t typically have the judgment to do those things, and the rare ones that do shouldn’t have the rules changed just to suit them. However, an adult is legally 18, so it doesn’t make sense that someone who is 20 can’t drink.
In fact, it seems downright unconstitutional to me. If you can buy cigarettes, join the Army or start your own business, it doesn’t make much sense that you can’t buy alcohol. The drinking age could probably be struck down as unconstitutional and a violation of civil rights based on age by a good litigator.
Denial is an extremely common symptom of alcoholism.
No, age discrimination is an entirely different issue that has nothing to do with the topic we are discussing.