FIGURE 3.-Estimated net reduction in nighttime fatal crashes in nine states that raised their legal minimum drinking ages.

studied) as of January 1981 had a legal age limit for some or all alcoholic beverages that was less than twenty-one. It is estimated that each year there could be about 730 fewer young drivers involved in nighttime fatal crashes if in all states the drinking age for all alcoholic beverages was raised to twenty-one. Any single state that raises its drinking age can expect the nighttime fatal crashes of drivers of the affected age groups to drop by about 28 percent.

The societal benefits achieved in states that have raised their drinking ages are substantial; the benefits achievable if additional states raise their drinking ages would be even more substantial. Raising the legal minimum drinking age to 21 in all states would go far toward reducing the annual toll of motor vehicle deaths in the United States, particularly the deaths of young people and of others with whom they are involved in crashes.

If persons under twenty-one were allowed to purchase only beer containing not more than 3.2 percent alcohol by weight, the state was classified as having a drinking age of twenty-one.

ATTACHMENT B

INSURANCE INSTITUTE FOR HIGHWAY SAFETY WATERGATE SIX HUNDRED, WASHINGTON, D.C. 20037

This is in response to your staff's request that we make available
relevant information for the printed record of your forthcoming
hearing on H.R. 3870.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety is an independent,
nonprofit research organization concerned with reducing deaths and
injuries on the nation's highways. We are supported directly or
indirectly by companies writing most of the motor vehicle insurance in
the United States. The Institute conducts research on a wide range of
factors that contribute to the huge losses resulting from highway
crashes.

Between 1970 and 1975, reductions in the legal minimum age for the
purchase of alcoholic beverages occurred in 29 states. The minimum
drinking age had been 21 in most of these states; it was reduced to
18, 19, or 20 - in most cases 18. Research studies, including one
conducted by the Institute, indicated that these reductions in the
drinking age had a negative effect, that is, they increased motor
vehicle crash involvement.

Beginning in 1976, there has been a trend to raise the drinking age
back to 19, 20, or 21, and the majority of states that reduced their
drinking age in the early 1970's have increased it, although usually
not back to the age it was originally.

I am enclosing a copy of a research study conducted by the Institute
in 1981, entitled "The effect of raising the legal minimum drinking
age on involvement in fatal crashes." This study was published in the

202/333-0770

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety is an independent, nonprofit, scientific and educational organization. It is dedicated to reducing the losses deaths, injunes and property damage resulting from crashes on the nation's highways. The Institute is supported by the Amencan Insurance Minhway Safety Association, the American insurers Highway Safety Alliance. the National Association of Independent insurers

blood, that your license is pulled and you cannot get it back until you are 21?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Well, Maine has in fact adopted that approach.

Mr. TAUZIN. I did not know that. What is the result of that approach?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Well, it has come in only very recently. It is not any alcohol at all, but it is .02, which is effectively about a drink or so, and they have license suspension penalties for that, and it remains to be seen what the effect of that will be.

Mr. TAUZIN. You do not know yet?

Mr. WILLIAMS. No, it is too early to tell.

Mr. KELLEY. Conceptually, certainly you are on sound ground. One of the strategies for diffusing hazardous situations is separating the components. In other words, if you take the fuse away from the explosive, you are going to have a much lower likelihood of the bomb going off, and if you can remove the particularly vulnerable drinking driver, in this case the young driver, from behind the steering wheel, yes, that certainly is a valid approach.

Can you do it? Can enforcement be directed toward that end? Will it work? Those questions would have to be very carefully researched. And as Dr. Williams points out, Maine is perhaps a small laboratory for looking at that.

Mr. TAUZIN. It seems to me an approach like that answers another serious political question, if you will, a social question. That is the concern that young people have expressed about their rights as a citizen, a full-blown citizen at 18. You know, they always say, if I am going to die for my country, why can I not have all the rights of another adult in society? It is a tough question to deal with. But if you dealt with it by saying, yes, you have all the rights in society except that if you want the right to drive on the highways, these particular statistics indicate that in these particular years, that too many people are dying, too many people are getting maimed, and if you want the right to drive, you should forsake the right to drink.

Mr. KELLEY. It is a tough question indeed. You earlier raised with the chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board the interesting question of why 21, why not 22, or 23, or 25, and listening and mulling as you and Mr. Burnett talked, I recalled a graph of figures of fatal driver involvement by age that have come out of our work as well as other work over the years, and for better or worse, 21-ish is about that point where the turndown begins.

That may be part of the answer, that those are the vulnerable years, and a subpart of that may be that these are the years in which uniquely the new driving experience, and I am talking about from 16 or 17 on up for a few years, plus the new drinking experience, are being combined for a time that will not happen at 30 or 40 or even 28, and if there is a rationale to that, that may well be part of the rationale, and we have created a double opportunity here for problems by linking those two together.

Mr. TAUZIN. That is a good point.

I thank the Chair.

Mr. FLORIO. Thank you very much. That is a very interesting point that we have had brought to our attention. The only difficulty I would have with the suggestion that apparently is being tried

out in Maine is, that of course means, if we are going to link, and it is an appropriate reason for linking driving and drinking on the part of young people, then in the ironic situation of authorizing the sale of alcohol to young people, for them to with no sanction go out and get totally blotto, walking across roads, becoming involved in the vandalism that we have heard that is associated with appropriate amounts of drinking, and you might end up in a sense providing the legal sanction to go imbibed to a degree that would not be in anyone's interest, if we are just going to rely upon yanking the automobile license as the means of enforcing what is an appropriate level of commercial sale to young people, or whatever the age is.

Mr. TAUZIN. I am not sure I follow that.

Mr. FLORIO. The suggestion you made was, and it apparently is being tried in Maine, if you have any alcohol in your blood, that you lose your driving license, which means rather than increase the driving age to 21, apparently that is the alternative, or that is the alternative sanction, but what that does is leave you with a situation of saying, fine, no one aged 19 can be out drinking and driving, but someone aged 19 can go buy as much as they want to, become intoxicated, and then they can do everything else short of driving.

Mr. TAUZIN. If I might respond, Mr. Chairman, it seems to me the whole purpose that brings us here today is a concern for the fatalities, the injuries that occur on the Nation's highways. If we were addressing the issue of drug abuse in an isolated fashion, then perhaps we would be discussing prohibition again, whether or not we ought to prohibit all of us from using drugs because we can all be vandals and all sorts of deviations from the norm, if you will, through the abuse of drugs. But that is not the issue that brings us here.

The issue that brings us here is that combination, putting the fuse of alcohol with the powerful vehicle on the road, and the result is death and injury. It seems to me that Maine perhaps has hit upon, maybe, until we see the results, a way of diffusing that situation and at the same time not getting into the great arguments about prohibition and whether or not adults in our society are to be absolutely prohibited from using some drug which has become quite common and popular in society.

Mr. FLORIO. Gentlemen, thank you very much.

We are pleased now to have the chairman of the President's Commission on Drunk Driving, the Honorable John A. Volpe.

Mr. Chairman, welcome to our committee. We are pleased to have you with us. As with our other witnesses, your statement will be made a part of the record in its entirety, and you may feel free to proceed as you see fit.

STATEMENT OF JOHN A. VOLPE, CHAIRMAN, PRESIDENTIAL COMMISSION ON DRUNK DRIVING

Mr. VOLPE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

May I say first that I should know this building reasonably well, but I came over from-I cannot even remember which building, but

I had to take two subways, and it took about 15 minutes, and I thought it would take 5.

Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, my name is John Volpe, and I welcome this opportunity to appear before your subcommittee to urge those States without the necessary legislation to enact laws establishing 21 as the minimum legal age for purchasing and possessing alcoholic beverages.

As chairman of the Presidential Commission on Drunk Driving, established by President Reagan on April 14, 1982, and as a former Governor of Massachusetts, I have become acutely aware of nearly every aspect of the problems created by those who drink to excess and drive. In fact, as Secretary of Transportation, I initiated the alcohol safety action project in 1969 as a first step toward finding a solution to this complex problem. And there is no one single solution, I might add.

This was the first attempt at the national level to focus attention on the tremendous human and economic loss caused by drunk drivers. Many States still maintain effective programs started over 10 years ago with the guidance, funds, and encouragement that we provided at that time.

My comments today will be directed not only to the desirability but the lifesaving need for States to enact legislation establishing 21 as the legal minimum age for purchasing and possessing alcoholic beverages. I will not recite a lot of statistics, because others have already done so, and undoubtedly you will listen to many more later today. I will mention only a few to support the conviction that I have after having served in public life for nearly three decades, closely observing the dramatic changes that have taken place in our society.

Several extensive studies show conclusively that after many States raised their drinking age, there was an impressive decline in nighttime fatal accidents among those in the 18 through 20 age group. Let me mention just a few taken from a study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a nonpartisan organization that has no ax to grind: New Hampshire, a decline of 75 percent; Iowa, 45 percent; and Maine, 11 percent. I mention Maine because in June 1972, when it was suddenly popular for States to lower the drinking age, Maine dropped from age 20 to age 18, and experienced a significant increase in reported alcohol involvement for young people in that group.

Another study showed 31 percent fewer alcohol-related accidents among those from 18 up to 21 years of age in Michigan after that State raised its legal age to 21 starting in 1979. When Illinois raised its legal drinking age from 18 to 21, late in 1977, there was a 14-percent reduction in fatal nighttime accidents among male drivers 19 through 20.

Now, while it may be true that a decrease in teenage fatalities did not reach these proportions in every single State where the age was raised, we simply cannot ignore the fact that many lives have been saved and more reductions can be accomplished if we act responsibly.

One aspect of the legal drinking age topic I want to mention is what might literally be called the trickle-down problem. No one is so naive as to think we can totally prevent teenagers or adults, for