Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site fisher.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!princeton!astrovax!fisher!djl From: djl@fisher.UUCP (Dan Levin N6BZA ) Newsgroups: net.flame Subject: Re: Big Push Against Drunk Driving Message-ID: <68@fisher.UUCP> Date: Fri, 9-Mar-84 16:18:27 EST Article-I.D.: fisher.68 Posted: Fri Mar 9 16:18:27 1984 Date-Received: Sat, 10-Mar-84 13:12:59 EST References: <270@charm.UUCP> <654@eosp1.UUCP> <2072@ihuxf.UUCP> Organization: Princeton Univ. Statistics Lines: 34 A quiet little flame for all of you do-gooders on your white horses charging about calling for drinking and driving ages of at least 21, if not 25 (perhaps mild exageration, but you get the point). The problem with drunk drivers in this country, and more importantly with driving on American roads at all is not the age of those involved, but the laws that let them out on the road in the first place. Raising the driving age does get rid of all the hot shot teenagers who are showing off and killing innocent civilians, but it also screws all the more civilized younger members of society. Since the later outnumber the former, what is required are much more stringint driving laws, and a return to the realization that driving is a PRIVILEGE, that my dollars give you the roads to drive on, and thus the right to keep you off them I you are a menace. As to the drinking age, if only it were lowered and the stigma of 'that's forbidden' taken off of booze, teenage drinking and alchoholism would drop like a rock. Take that from someone who is living the terror of seeing his friends and classmates 'discover' alchohol for the first time. It is truely frightening. So, lets hear it for a reasonable driving age, with much more difficult tests (ala Germany), and drink for all, or at least from age 14 with parental consent. This from the mouth of a 20 year old college student, so administer one LARGE grain of salt upon reading. All flames to net.flame or mail please! -- ***dan {ihnp4 | decvax | ucbvax}!allegra!fisher!djl The misplaced (you call *that* a mountain ?!?!?) Californian