For your into. Teens' driving deaths tied to drinking laws A Duke researcher has some sobering advice for states with a minimum drinking age of 18. Raise the age to 21 and auto fatality rates among young people in their upper teens will drop 7 percent. And, says Phillip J. Cook, an economist at Duke's Institute of Policy Sciences and Public Affairs, there's more good news. Expect the fatality rate among 16-10 17year-olds to drop up to 6 percent. Cook is the author, with fellow Duke economist George Tauchen, of a study of the effect of minimum drinking age legislation on teenage auto fatalities in the 1970s. The study will appear in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Legal Studies, published by the University of Chicago Press The study is unusual. Cook says, because it contains numerical estimates of lives lost and saved as a consequence of legislative decisions. Using complex mathematical formulas that correct for state population differences and many other variables. Cook and Tauchen determined that 1.041 teens in the 18- to 20year-old bracket who died in car crashes from 1970 to 1975 would have lived if all states had had 21 as the legal minimum drinking age. During this period. 32,243 18-to 20-yearolds died in traffic accidents, either as the driver or as a passenger Between 1970 and 1975. 29 states lowered their legal drinking age, but 14 have since raised it as concern over youthful drunken driving has mounted. Cook says. "The wave of minimum age reductions was touched off by the passage of the 26th Amendment, which gave 18-year-olds the right to vote in federal elections. "he says. "It seemed reasonable in principle to extend the privileges of adult status to those deemed old enough to be drafted and fight in Vietnam. This argument was buttressed by the observation that the majority of college-age youths drink regularly whether or not they are legally entitled to do At the moment, Cook says, eight states allow legal drinking at 18. Nine states and the District of Columbia allow beer sales to 18year-olds but set 21 as the minimum for liquor. Twelve states set the minimum age for all alcoholic drinks at 19. six at 20 and 15 at 21. This distribution, "the researcher adds, "characterizes the conclusion of a decade of turmoil in minimum legal drinking age legislation This same turmoil can be viewed through a researcher's eyes as a "nation-wide expenment. Cook says, giving him and Tauchen the raw material needed to develop statistical and numerical estimates on the effects of various minimum drinking ages. Cook says other researchers have determined that the traffic fatality rate per 100 million miles of exposure (as a driver or passenger) peaks at 6.5 at age 18. This rate drops steeply after age 20. going below 3 by age 24 and reaching a minimum of about one per 100 million miles by age 35. Expressed in blunt terms, Cook says auto fatalities are the leading cause of death of youths age 16-20. But alcohol is also a big factor in non-fatal accidents, he continues. citing a Michigan study that found drivers with blood alcohol content over 15 percent had 18 times the accident rate per mile as a control group with no blood alcohol. Cook says one of the most serious objections to 18 as the legal drinking age is its spillover effect on 16- and 17-year-olds. Their 18-andolder friends tend to buy beer and other alcoholic beverages for them. This problem could be countered to some extent by making 19 the legal drinking age. Cook says. Cook and Tauchen list legal drinking ages and auto fatality rates among 18- to 20-yearolds by individual states, 1970-75. in their paper. During the period. Wyoming had the highest rate, more than one person in a thousand. The state's legal drinking age was 21 in 1970. lowered to 19 by 1975. Utah had the lowest rate in 1975. .26 per 1.000. Its drinking age remained at 21 throughout the period. North Carolina's legal drinking age for beer. 18. has remained unchanged. The fatality rate was 60 per 1.000 in 1970, dropping slightly to 54 by 1975. BOB WILSON Wilson is Duke News Service's associate director. * Duke Alumni Register 3 Since 1985 The Gallup Poll FOR RELEASE: Thur day, January 27, 1983 21-Year National Drinking-Age Law Backed By Large Majority Of Public By George Gallup PRINCETON, N.J. - If the American people were voting today in a nationwide referendum on a law making 21 the national minimum drinking age, the large majority, including young people, would vote "yes." Adults of all ages express support for a uniform national drinking age. Even 18-, 19-, and 20-year-olds vote for the proposed legislation, by a 3-to-2 ratio. These young men and women would not be able to legally buy or drink alcoholic beverages if such a law were enacted. At present, 34 states and the District of Columbia permit adults under 21 to drink all or some forms of alcoholic beverage. The strongest (6-to-1) backing for the proposal comes from persons 50 and older, with proportionately less support as age decreases. Thus, 83% of those 50 and older favor a national minimum-age law, compared to 77% of 30-to-49-year-olds, 72% of 21-to-29-year-olds, and 58% of 18-to-20-year-olds. Also, men and persons who attended college - population groups in which there is a high incidence of drinking- express somewhat greater opposition to the proposed law. Accidents Decline When the 27th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1971, giving 18-, 19-, and 20-year-olds the right to vote in national elections, many states lowered their minimum legal drinking age. This reflected the belief that if young people were old enough to vote, marry, and serve in the armed forces, they were mature enough to drink responsibly. However, with teen-agers disproportionately involved in alcohol-related auto accidents, state legislators have been reassessing their drinking-age laws. As recently as 1979, 12 states permitted 18-year-olds to drink; today only five do. Spurred by parents of children killed in accidents involving drunk drivers, President Reagan last year named a 32-member commission to study the drunkdriving problem. One of the commission's key recommendations urged states to raise the legal age for buying or consuming alcoholic beverages to 21. Drunk driving reportedly causes 25,000 auto fatalities and costs the nation some $24 billion each year. Some states which have taken tough measures to deal with drunk driving, including raising their legal drinking age, report sharp reductions in alcohol-related accidents. One of the principal arguments for raising the legal age is that it would help prevent high-school seniors, many of whom are now of legal age, from buying alcoholic beverages for their younger schoolmates. Gallup surveys have shown strong public support for raising the minimum drinking age in states where it is legal to drink at ages 18 or 19. However, a 1981 Gallup Youth Survey of 13-to-18-year-olds found that far fewer teenagers living in states with lower drinking ages favored raising the legal age, while in states with higher limits, many more teen-agers expressed a preference for lowering the drinking age. Following is the question asked of adults in the latest survey and the key findings: Do you favor or oppose a national law that would raise the legal drinking age in all states to 21? 35-289 0-84-36 AMERICAN AUTOMOBILE ASSOCIATION 8111 GATEHOUSE ROAD FALLS CHURCH VIRGINIA 22047 703 AAA 6000 CABLE AMERAUTO TELEX 89-9485 October 18, 1983 The Honorable James J. Florio HOB Annex II, Room 151 Dear Mr. Florio: The American Automobile Association supports efforts to establish a minimum drinking age of 21 in the various states. AAA commends your concern regarding this issue. As you are highly aware, statistics alone are dramatic enough to illustrate the need for action. Of the 25,000 Americans who have died each year from alcohol-related accidents, roughly 35 percent are between the ages of 16 and 24. It is no wonder that the Surgeon General has reported that life expectancy in this country has increased for every age group, with the exception of the 15-24 year olds. AAA has long recognized that drunk driving has caused far too many traffic fatalities. We have been active in developing educational materials for almost 20 years to address the continuing problem of drinking and driving. As more research results have become available, we have responded by providing educational programs for younger and younger students because the problem is starting earlier. Our latest program addresses attitudes towards alcohol for school children in grades K-6. Of course, we realize that other measures are necessary and desirable to combat such a complex problem. One of the policies our organization has worked to achieve is a uniform drinking age of 21. We feel this is essential in bringing down the level of drunk driving in young people, and it appears that studies have supported our belief. Especially positive results were shown in Michigan, where a 31 percent decrease in alcohol-related deaths (among 18 to 20 yearolds) resulted from raising the drinking age to 21. In our view, a uniform drinking age would eliminate the problem of teenagers crossing state lines to purchase alcoholic beverages. We intend to make substantial efforts, through AAA clubs across the country, to raise the drinking age to 21 in the various state legislatures. In light of the positive momentum created by heightened public awareness of the drunken driving problem we believe efforts on the state level will be fruitful in the near future. We do, however, feel that the state legislatures are the most appropriate forums to address the issue of the drinking age. Mandates imposed by Washington often are resented by local citizens. Consequently, we believe that age 21 drinking laws will be more respected and adhered to if enacted by local legislatures rather than by federal fiat. This concern has also led us to strongly oppose the use of highway funding sanctions to require enactment of age 21 drinking laws, or for any other purpose. Thank you for creating the opportunity for us, and the many other individuals and groups interested in this issue, to discuss the drinking age question. -2 Each year alcohol is a conspirator in thousands of drownings, suicides, violent injuries, deaths, and injuries from fires. Seventy times a day once every 23 minutes -- a life is taken somewhere on our streets and highways because driving skills and judgment were impaired by alcohol and drugs. The annual rate of 25,000 Americans killed by alcohol-related traffic accidents not to mention the 700,000 injuries far exceeds all but the largest flu epidemics of the past 30 years. - through alcohol abuse -- are While the medical profession uses all of its genius and experience to lengthen the average American life span, young people literally snuffing out their own lives. Each year 10,000 young lives are lost in alcohol related motor vehicle crashes. It should not surprise us, then, that Americans between the ages of 16 and 24 have a higher death rate than 20 years ago, the only age group in the United States whose death rate has climbed rather than fallen in the last decade. The death rate of our young Americans is higher than their counterparts in such countries as Sweden, Great Britain, Japan, and Wales. Contributing to this tragic fact is the violence we see in homicides, suicides, and various other types of accidents. But motor vehicle accidents are still the leading killers of our young people the curse of alcohol abuse. and a major cause for all of these tragedies is |