Why Can Americans Drive at 16 but Drink at 21 Paper Example

Introducttion

In the past, I have come across a number of debates trying to demystify the challenging scenario pertaining to the difference in the drinking and driving age in many countries including America. This has remained a matter of contention in the public debate until I recently bumped into an article written by your organization on "Drinking and You" in attempt to unearth some of the underlying factors that have seen the lawful upholding of the difference in the drinking and driving ages in America. While much debates have been on the rise t have the legal drinking age reduced from 21 to 18, currently, the law stipulates that the legal driving age remains at 16 years while the one can only be allowed to drive at 21. Your article has been helpful in helping me understand some of the compelling reasons for the difference in the driving and drinking ages including the blood alcohol content (BAC), the alcohol effect on consumer's health, drunk-driving related accidents, and alcohol effect on the distance thinking.

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Compelling Reasons for Age Disparities

Your article has been impressive on the systematic address that it has given to some of these very obvious factors. For instance, the manner y which the article has addressed the effect of alcohol on consumers. From the article, I have been able to understand that alcohol thoroughly affects vision, coordination, and reaction time for drivers. The drinking law in America, has, therefore, made it mandatory that all alcohol vendors can only sell the persons over the age of 21. The age limit on the minimum drinking age is based on the ability of the individuals to handle alcohol content based on Blood Alcohol Concentration. From the many pieces of research done, according to this article, persons under the age of 21 have very high body alcohol concentration, therefore; they are likely to make many mistakes as compares to older ones.

Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) and Age

While the level of blood alcohol content varies with the amount of alcohol one consumes there is sufficient knowledge that the basal metabolic rate in younger ones is very high. Therefore, most of the alcohol consumed will be absorbed directly into the blood system as compared to the case with older people. In the same case, therefore, it is important to have a strong measure of BAC, just as proposed in the article. The BAC can be measured using reliable systems such as breathalyzers. This measures the alcohol content in every 100ml of blood. This means that in the U.S.A a BAC of 0.08 is the maximums allowed for the individuals at the age of 21.

On the driving course, there is an indication that the thinking distance for the youths under the age of 16 years is quite low with an improvement seen in the youths over the age of 16. =I understand that it is on the premise of such factors that the driving age has been set at 16 years while the drinking age is at 21 years. How else could I explain why alcohol has a higher contribution to accidents compared to other causes of accidents? I concur with the finding in this article that alcohol indeed alters the reaction speed for individuals, particularly those ones under the age of 21 years. Therefore, it is possible to have youths at the age of 16 years drive comfortably on the roads, while drinking can only be legal at 21 years of age.

In other cases, the articulation of points in this study is apt and reaches to the core of matters under discussion. For instance, the article clearly and comfortable addresses some of the factors that lead to the variance in BAC in different personalities. Indeed different people have different BAC level depending on such factors as gender, body size but majorly age. It is, therefore, now under that it is easy to find careless crime rate due to t underage drinking due to the fact that the BAC level in the youths is way much higher than those above the age of 21. The article critically examines some other factors that have seen the dangerous effects of alcohol take a center stage in discussions pertaining to drinking and driving as a real danger in the society, both modern and in the past. Such factors as drinking on an empty stomach, drinking quickly, the proportion of body to fat ratio, tiredness and the type of alcohol all affect the level of BAC on individuals. Therefore, it is important to leave it to the fact that the level of alcohol uptake needs to be controlled by individuals of consenting age at 21 years of age.

Conclusion

As I finish, I would like to appreciate the due diligence which you put in discussion to help in establishing and distancing the contribution of law to underage driving and underage drinking. Whereas there g=have been several legislative proposals in America seeking to lower the drinking age from 21 to 18 as it has been in the most case, the article determines that this would be inappropriate since most of these young ones are totally unable to manage and control the drinking age. I would recommend, however, that you do further research on coming with laws that dictate the model of cars that youths between the age of 16 and 20 can drive. With the low maturity rate, such sports cars as Ferrari and Bugatti would spell danger to their lives and that of others due to the adrenaline excitements to over speed.

Yours Sincerely,

(Name)