Lower drinking age will increase traffic deaths
The most effective and agreeable public policies are those that maximize individual liberty while maintaining societal order. Speed limits, for instance, do not prevent us from driving across town; they only ensure that we do so safely, without endangering our fellow citizens. Public safety depends upon regulation of individual conduct. Because most of us recognize this fact intuitively, we understand the need for, and abide by, speed limits. We do not argue that we should be allowed to drive 90 mph through school zones. Speed limits are a rational compromise between individual liberty and societal order.
So is the minimum legal drinking age of 21. Last month, however, a group comprised of about 100 college presidents launched a campaign called the Amethyst Initiative, which urges legislators and citizens nationwide to engage in an "informed and dispassionate debate" about lowering the legal drinking age to 18. A lower legal age, the presidents suggest, would eliminate "a culture of dangerous, clandestine 'binge-drinking.' " The minimum legal drinking age, they attest, is not in line with "current realities." The initiative's founder, John McCardell, told The Associated Press that the legal drinking age is "routinely evaded," and it is "a law that the people at whom it is directed believe is unjust and unfair and discriminatory."
To begin with, those who have lost mothers, sisters, wives and daughters to drunken drivers may have difficulty engaging in a dispassionate debate about a proposal that is likely to increase the number of intoxicated motorists careening about our highways. In fact, according to a study released last month, drunken-driving fatalities increased by 66 people in North Carolina last year -- the largest increase in the nation.
Furthermore, it is illogical to assume that increasing the availability of a substance will decrease the frequency or intensity of abuse of said substance. If we were to declare war on obesity, would we issue to obese families McDonalds coupons redeemable for free Supersized Big Mac combos? If we were to declare war on smoking, would we issue cartons of Marlboro Lights to 14-year-olds? Likewise, making alcohol available to 18-year-olds is not likely to curb binge drinking.
Continuing with the Amethyst Initiative's line of reasoning, one could argue that laws against marijuana use are contrary to current realities; that marijuana laws are routinely evaded. (In fact, a discussion of marijuana legalization would be much more worthwhile than a discussion about lowering the drinking age.) Since when is the fact that a law is often ignored sufficient grounds for throwing out the law? Laws prohibiting burglary, rape and assault are often evaded, but order and public safety would not be served by repealing all relevant legislation.
Many pedophiles and bigamists probably believe laws prohibiting their "lifestyle choices" are unjust, unfair and discriminatory. But legislation designed to reflect the collective morality, to preserve order and public safety, cannot be jettisoned every time someone feels aggrieved. Discrimination is sometimes a good thing. We rightly discriminate against those who represent a menace to order and public safety.
Drunken drivers represent such a menace, and their presence on the highways is significantly reduced by a drinking age of 21. In the mid-1970s, alcohol was a factor in more than 60 percent of traffic deaths in the U.S. In 1984, Congress passed legislation establishing the minimum drinking age at 21. Not coincidentally, the percentage of traffic fatalities attributable to alcohol has since fallen to 40 percent.
According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, in 1982 (two years before the dinking age was set at 21), there were 5,244 alcohol-related traffic deaths among those aged 16 to 20. By 2004, that figure had fallen to 2,115. Sixty-three percent of North Carolina's traffic deaths in 1982 were alcohol-related; by 2006, that figure had fallen to 31 percent. The evidence is overwhelming: Setting the drinking age at 21 is a public policy that saves thousands of lives every year.
The majority position is not a prudish, anti-alcohol stance. We are not prohibitionists. In fact, many of us are libertarian in regard to alcohol use (and drug use in general): What one does in his own home is his business, so long as his actions harm no one else. I couldn't care less if the Joneses drink themselves into a stupor. So long as they stay off the road.
But most 18- to 20-year-olds -- males in particular -- are strangers to moderation and lack the maturity to drink responsibly. As demonstrated by the statistics above, they will drink excessively, they will drive, and they will take the lives of innocents. The legal drinking age should remain at 21.
Charles Davenport Jr. (daisha99@msn.com) is a freelance columnist who appears in the News & Record alternate Sundays.
