Option 1: Attain the current legal drinking age at 18
To keep the legal age at 18 would be a viable option due to that there is other aspects rather then increasing the age, that influence a young persons not to drink and drive. A clear example of this is the decrease in young drink drivers over the years is due to laws such as zero tolerance laws, general alcohol safety laws and safety belt laws being brought into place. This decrease can also be seen in Queensland after provisional drivers road rights where restricted by removing young drivers from the road with passengers, at times when drink driving accidents where most prominent.
However increasing the age is yet another factor that could potentially decrease even more drink driving related deaths in conjunction with other current legislation. Also their is large body of evidence from other countries such as The United States and Canada that clearly show the power that raising the legal age has to decrease drink driving …show more content…
Additionally it will also reduce the risk of underage binge drinking which can interfere with the development of key parts of a growing brain such as the frontal lobes, therefore it could lead to future drink driving behaviors that could result in death and can be perceived as medically irresponsible.
Changing the legal drinking age to 21 however will have consequences; this is due to that studies conclude that there is a clear link between persons who have never drunk alcohol legally between the ages of 18 to 21, and having increased alcohol consumption as well as an increase in fatal accidents in later years. Therefore supporting that that in the short term it may be beneficial however long term can have bigger
To keep the legal age at 18 would be a viable option due to that there is other aspects rather then increasing the age, that influence a young persons not to drink and drive. A clear example of this is the decrease in young drink drivers over the years is due to laws such as zero tolerance laws, general alcohol safety laws and safety belt laws being brought into place. This decrease can also be seen in Queensland after provisional drivers road rights where restricted by removing young drivers from the road with passengers, at times when drink driving accidents where most prominent.
However increasing the age is yet another factor that could potentially decrease even more drink driving related deaths in conjunction with other current legislation. Also their is large body of evidence from other countries such as The United States and Canada that clearly show the power that raising the legal age has to decrease drink driving …show more content…
Additionally it will also reduce the risk of underage binge drinking which can interfere with the development of key parts of a growing brain such as the frontal lobes, therefore it could lead to future drink driving behaviors that could result in death and can be perceived as medically irresponsible.
Changing the legal drinking age to 21 however will have consequences; this is due to that studies conclude that there is a clear link between persons who have never drunk alcohol legally between the ages of 18 to 21, and having increased alcohol consumption as well as an increase in fatal accidents in later years. Therefore supporting that that in the short term it may be beneficial however long term can have bigger