where there is an unequal age, for instance, on the Illinois-Wisconsin border, there are some special problems created.

West Virginia has a remedy for that. They have enacted legislation which includes a provision that says if you are a nonresident under 21, you cannot buy alcoholic beverages. Perhaps Federal legislation to achieve that might be in order, and I think the lobby against raising the drinking age in many of our States has come from people who are making a lot of money selling liquor to young people from other States, and that will certainly make that lobby less enthusiastic, perhaps less influential.

Mr. Chairman, these are my thoughts on this issue. I would be pleased to respond to any questions you may have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Burnett follows:]

TESTIMONY OF

HONORABLE JIM BURNETT

CHAIRMAN

NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD

Good morning.

I am pleased to be here this morning to present testimony on behalf of the National Transportation Safety Board regarding H.R. 3870, a bill to establish a national drinking age of 21.

Accompanying me today is Mr. Barry Sweedler, Director of the Board's Bureau of Safety Programs, and Mr. John Moulden, our Alcohol Program

Coordinator.

While strategies for achieving a uniform drinking age of 21 across this nation differ, I believe we all agree that this is a most worthy goal, and I applaud your efforts, Mr. Chairman. This is a goal, literally, of lifesaving potential, because it addresses what I regard as a national

scandal

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the death toll of young Americans involved in alcohol-involved highway crashes.

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To some the words "national scandal" may sound overly dramatic a rhetorical device to attract attention. In this case nothing could be farther from the truth, because I am talking about approximately 5,000 of the 25,000 alcohol-involved deaths a year all of them involving persons between the ages of 16 and 21. I submit to you that the loss of that many lives because of alcohol-impaired driving is nothing short of a national scandal, and should be accepted as one. Drunk driving is, in my opinion, the most pervasive form of lawlessness in this country.

2

I realize that statistics often do not tell the "full story," but

in the case of our young drivers they carry a dramatic impact that cannot

be ignored.

For example, 500 deaths a year translate into nearly 14 young lives lost every single day. That in itself is death on an epidemic scale.

Moreover, some 130,000 teenagers are injured each year in driving accidents, which means that 360 are injured each day. Here are some more telling facts:

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Almost 60 percent of all fatally injured teenage drivers

are found to have alcohol in their blood, with 43 percent
at legally intoxicated levels;

Teenagers are three times as likely to be in an accident
as the average driver (as a function of the number of
licensed drivers or the mileage they travel);

Teenagers are two and one-half times as likely as the
average driver to be in an accident in which they are
involved with alcohol;

Even though the number of accidents in which the

driver has been drinking increases up through the

early 20s, the rate of alcohol-involved accidents is
highest for teenagers;

3

The Surgeon General has reported that the life expectancy has

improved over the past 75 years for every age group

except one. The exception is the 15-24-year old American

whose death rate is higher than it was 20 years ago.

And

the single leading cause of death for this age group is
alcohol-involved highway accidents.

The Safety Board has also been impressed by data it has drawn from its own accident investigations.

Not surprisingly, alcohol has been involved in many of the highway accidents that we have investigated. It was one such accident in Mineola, New York on March 14, 1982 that led the Board to its first major action regarding drunken driving.

In that accident, a van carrying ten teenagers from a party in Nassau County, New York was driven around a lowered grade crossing gate equipped with flashing lights. A commuter train struck the van, killing nine of the ten teenagers.

Our investigation showed that the blood alcohol concentration of the 19-year-old driver was .09. Under the New York state

law, a blood alcohol concentration level of .06 to .09 is evidence that

the driver's ability is impaired. At level 10 the driver is considered "intoxicated."

4

At the time of the accident, New York's minimum legal purchasing age

for all alcoholic beverages was 18.

I come before you this morning with no magical solution to this tragedy.

I don't believe there is either a "quick fix" or, for that matter, a

"single fix."

But the Board does believe that raising the age to 21 for drinking and purchasing alcohol is the single most effective thing that can be done to cut the death toll among the young. As a result it has urged the governors and legislators of thirty five states to join in raising the drinking age.

Let me tell you why the Board feels as it does.

First of all, as I said earlier, 5,000 of the 25,000 persons who die in alcohol-involved accidents each year are teenagers.

Another reason is that accident statistics suggest strongly that increasing the drinking age will reduce fatalities among teenagers in drunk driving accidents. By raising the drinking age to 21 we can save about 1,250 lives each year. There are few recommendations the Safety Board makes which have the potential for saving so many lives.