[Cal31370]

I suppose that to someone your age it does seem arbitrary. Perhaps it will make more sense if you understand how the present situation came to be. In the late 60’s and early 70’s the drinking age and the voting age were both 21. It was pointed out that young men were being drafted and sent to Vietnam when they were as young as 18, yet they could not vote about whether we should have been fighting that war in the first place. So, the voting age was lowered to 18. Not long after that, some states dropped the drinking age to 18. There was some increase in the number of traffic deaths attributed to drunk driving. It was a bit of a problem in high schools because most of the senior class was of legal drinking age. This made it extremely easy for younger high school students to obtain alcohol. In colleges, the entire student body was of legal age. It was great fun to be a college student in 1978, but it was not very conducive to studying. Sometime during the Carter administration, the federal government coerced all the states to raise the drinking age back to 21. Driving age is lower because there is some utility in having 16 year olds drive. They can get to work and school etc. Some states like South Dakota allow driving at ages younger than 16. While it’s true that 16 year-olds as a group have horrible driving records, I am not convinced that raising the driving age to 18 or 21 or 25 is the answer. The reason that 25 year-olds are better drivers than 16 year-olds is that they have been driving 9 years. Also because the very worst of the young drivers are dead or in jail before they get to be 25. I don’t think it is a double standard that we think it is ok for someone to operate a tank in the army before we trust them to buy a beer. the kid in the tank has a great deal of training and supervision. The kid in the liqour store is on his own.

User Detail :  

Name : Cal31370, City : Lakewwod, State : CA, Country : United States, 

[Author]

Posts