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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!princeton!eosp1!lincoln
From: lincoln@eosp1.UUCP (Dick Lincoln)
Newsgroups: net.auto
Subject: Re: Big Push Against Drunk Driving
Message-ID: <654@eosp1.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 8-Mar-84 10:19:01 EST
Article-I.D.: eosp1.654
Posted: Thu Mar  8 10:19:01 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 9-Mar-84 02:23:53 EST
References: <270@charm.UUCP>
Organization: Exxon Office Systems, Princeton, NJ
Lines: 21

I believe the push to raise minimum drinking age and increase drunk
driving penalties is a long delayed pendulum swing reaction to the
excesses generated when the minimum drinking and voting ages were
reduced during the Vietnam War.  The theory then was, "If you're old
enough to die for your country, you're old enough to drink and vote."
(Not necessarily in that order on the same day.)  :-

Then over the many following years, statistics rolled in presumably
proving that the incidence of drinking related highway accidents and
fatalities has surged upward in correlation with the reduced drinking
age, particularly for youths near the minimum age.

Nothing spurs parents' action like a threat to their children, so the
push is on to raise the age again, and increased action against drunk
driving is a parallel effort primarily to save kids.

As yet I haven't seen any concomitant reaction against "kiddy"
voting, perhaps because the kiddies haven't taken to it like they did
to drinking and driving (:-).

At least it's a nice theory.