Minimum Legal Drinking Age

She highlights that scientific studies found the 21-year-old law saves lives on and off the road. Dean-Mooney emphasizes the public agrees that “72 percent of adults think that lowering the drinking age would make alcohol more accessible to kids”(Dean-Mooney 3). Another claim of the author it that lowering the drinking age would put more responsibility on the parents and educators. Additionally, she claims that lowering the drinking age would have dangerous long- term effects. Early adolescent drinkers are, “more susceptible to alcoholism”(Dean-Mooney 10).

A great number of young lives are tragically cut short every year, in one of the leading causes of death in the world: car accidents. Soon after obtaining their permit at just sixteen, a large amount of teens end up making a fatal mistake while driving and lose their lives. America, understandably concerned with the death rate, has since implemented stricter laws regarding obtaining a driver’s license, and many are considering raising the minimum driving age. Throughout time, young age has always been correlated with recklessness and carelessness, and it would be sensible to take that into account when taking a stance on such a dangerous issue as car accidents. In order to increase safety and reduce death, it would be prudent to raise the minimum driving age.

Accustomed to such inconsistent treatment. ……young people are bombarded with mixed signals about the scope of their rights and the depth of their responsibilities. And most of those mixed signals come from the laws of state and local government.” (Governing.com Page 1) These confusing laws make nothing easier and in fact they make young people’s lives more difficult. My opinion on the whole situation is that the drinking age should be lowered because of binge drinking. Since the drinking age has been twenty-one it has not stopped underage teens for drinking and has actually caused more problems.

If the drinking age is lowered, it will just increase the amount of illegal and unsupervised drinking going on in the nation. Also, lowering the drinking age will cause more car accidents and other types of accidents with younger teenagers. Teenagers will get into cars with their friends to go places, and this can end up badly if the driver has been drinking. Some teenagers can not drive so if they get into cars with their 18-year-old friends who can drink, car accidents are bound to happen. Not many 15-16-year-olds are friends with 21+-year-olds, so this is not as big of a problem currently.

Although there was a decrease of almost 15% in crashes involving motorcycles, the fatality rate among motorcyclists remains a cause for concern. So, one thing is for sure-motorcycle safety awareness has to be turned into a year round initiative, instead of limiting it to just the month of May. Motorcyclists are at a distinct disadvantage when on the road; they have smaller vehicles with lower stability and are more vulnerable to road conditions and inclement weather. To compound their

Recent studies found that the most effective way of reducing gun crime is to lower the amount of guns available in circulation. In the US specifically, studies show that the stricter gun laws are in a state, the lower the amount of deaths related to guns occur (Graham). While many believe that further restrictions on guns would not be feasible, both Australia and the United Kingdom managed to highly restrict or ban guns from their nations in order to reduce gun-related deaths and crime (Graham). Australia was able to rid the country of around 650,000 guns and their rate of robberies per 100,000 people sank from about 100 to 60 (cite later 1). This program of complete gun confiscation costed Australia $230 million.

Raising the Minimum Driving Age in the United States as a National Standard Motor vehicle accidents are the leading cause of death among teenagers in the United States of America. Teenagers have a higher number of fatal and non-fatal accident rates than any other group of drivers. Statistics show that fatal car crash rates for 16 to 17 year olds is two times higher than 18 to 19 year olds. The United States of America should raise the minimum driving age in order to reduce teenage fatal motor vehicle accidents, decrease risky driving behaviors, and deter alcohol/drug impaired driving, thus saving many teenagers lives. By raising the minimum driving age in the United States of America the teenage motor vehicle accident rates would decrease.

The studies show that after implementation of this restriction, the number of drunken driving cases with lethal outcomes, the number of homicides and suicides as well as injuries among people in the category of 18-20 was reduced. This is claimed to be the result of a working law on limitations. However, even from the economical point of view, the deaths that would be caused by the removal of age restriction to the point of 18 would cost more than the benefits that would be gained from such actions. There is even more to mention. Despite the fact that the legal limitation on alcohol consumption is acting throughout the whole country, the “right to set any drinking age remains in the states' control” (Choose Responsibility) so that the age index may vary.

And last year there were 71,034 injuries resulted from drinking and driving. So therefore is drinking and driving a issue in ohio? Yes it is an issue that needs to be dealt with. People now a days just don’t care and just push the issue aside. Drunk driving is a serious issue!

Andrea Summers is a coordinator of the teen driving program for the Delaware Office of Highway Safety. Summers said “my state and others have chosen to toughen laws without raising the driving age - by banning teens from using cellphones while driving” (CBS). Other laws like imposing stricter driving curfews and expanding supervised driving time (CBS). “Around 6,000 teenage drivers are killed in car accidents each year” but most of them are untrained and unsupervised (Weaver). If those laws Summers talked about get passed they won’t have to raise the driving age and it will be