WRONG! Pick up some talking points in this 6-minute video, if your attention span is long enough.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4CQKPYDRew

However, as we've theorized, the drop in fatal crashes that occurred both in the U.S. and Canada might be better attributed to the numerous vehicular safety improvements have been made in cars since the 1980's, and the fact tgat auto accidents in general have decreased. Hence, it is not so implausible to suggest that alcohol-related auto accidents would decrease as part of this trend. In fact, I'd say it's more implausible to suggest the opposite, considering that, again, alcohol-related fatalities among drivers under 21 have fallen by a similar proportion in Canada, despite the fact that the drinking age remains 18 or 19 depending on the region. Incidentally, this is also NHTSA data.

http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/injury/ … caused.htm

Fatal crash data. Data from 1982 to date from the seven provinces for which these data are available (Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, and Saskatchewan) were provided by the Transport Injury Research Foundation (TIRF). The data differ slightly from the United States FARS data in three ways. First, they record driver fatalities rather than driver involvements in fatal crashes. Second, they aggregate drivers age 16-19 rather than drivers under 21 as has been used for the United States. Finally, the TIRF file does not estimate alcohol presence for a driver without a BAC test. The proportion of fatally injured drivers with a positive BAC is calculated only for the drivers with a BAC test. Most drivers are tested: 76 percent of the age 16-19 driver fatalities in 1982 and 93 percent in 1997.
 
These differences may affect comparisons between the Canadian and United States data somewhat. For example, if BAC tests are available less frequently for sober drivers than for drinking drivers, then the proportion of fatally-injured drivers with a positive BAC calculated only from the tested drivers may overstate the proportion for all fatally-injured drivers. But these differences should not affect the trends over time or trend comparisons between the two countries.
 
Figure 31 shows the trend in Canadian fatally-injured drinking drivers aged 16-19. It looks rather similar to the United States trend of Figure 1, with a rapid decrease through about 1993 and no substantial change since then. (The Canadian trend fluctuates more from year to year than the United States trend since the absolute number of Canadian traffic fatalities is much smaller.) Figure 32 shows how very similar the two trends are by plotting both using a base of 1982 = 100 percent.
  [CENTER]
[FONT=Arial]Figure 31.
  Canadian Driver Fatalities, Age 16-19, with Positive BAC
[/FONT] 

[FONT=Arial]Figure 32.
  US and Canadian Trends, Percentage Change from 1982
US:  drivers under age 21 in fatal crashes with positive BAC (FARS)
Canada:  driver fatalities age 16-19 with positive BAC (TIRF)
[/FONT]  [/CENTER]

Figure 33 shows the trend in the proportion of fatally-injured Canadian drivers with a positive BAC. The trend is similar to the corresponding United States trend of Figure 3. The absolute percentages are higher in Canada: 67 percent in 1982 (compared to 43 percent in the United States) and 39 percent in 1997 (compared to 21 percent). Some of this difference may be a result of the different methods used to estimate alcohol involvement in the two data files. Some may in fact reflect higher drinking and driving rates in Canada. But the trends in the two countries again appear very similar. Figure 34 compares the trends directly.
      [CENTER]
[FONT=Arial]Figure 33.
  Percent of Canadian Driver Fatalities, Age 16-19, with Positive BAC
[/FONT] 

[FONT=Arial]Figure 34.
  US and Canadian Trends, Percentage Change from 1982
    US:  percentage of drivers under age 21 in fatal crashes with positive BAC (FARS)
Canada:  percentage of driver fatalities age 16-19 with positive BAC (TIRF)
[/FONT]  [/CENTER]

Figures 32 and 34 show the same thing: as measured by fatal crash data, youth drinking and driving decreases in the United States and Canada from 1982 to 1997 were virtually identical. Other data strengthen this conclusion. In both countries, the number of young drinking drivers in fatal crashes decreased more rapidly than the number of older drinking drivers. A roadside survey in British Columbia produced results similar to Roeper and Voas (1999): a much smaller proportion of drivers age 16-19 than older drivers had a positive BAC, or a BAC exceeding the legal limit of 0.08 (Mayhew and Simpson, 1999).
 
Survey data. Smart, Adlaf, and Walsh (1994) report on biennial surveys of about 4,000 Ontario high school students similar to the Monitoring the Future surveys in the United States. Table 17 summarizes self-reported drinking changes from 1979 to 1991 from the two surveys.
  Since the Ontario data come from a sample of students in grades 7-13, while the United States data come from high school seniors, it's no surprise that overall self-reported drinking levels are lower in Ontario. The reductions, though, are generally similar: a modest reduction in annual drinking, substantial reductions in binge drinking, and reductions close to 50 percent in both daily drinking (at low levels in both countries) and driving after drinking.

The NHTSA attributes this to alcohol education programs in Canada, (which would still question the necessity of a high drinking age), but has essentially no evidence to validate this claim. It could very well be true, of course, but I'm inclined to believe that vehicular safety improvements in industrialized countries resulted in these overall decreases.

Be sure to refer to this data in debates.

License could get revoked for people who don't drink responsibly like disorderly conduct, public urination, starting fights, drunk driving, procuring the alcohol to someone who lacks a license (like giving one to a minor now), things like that.

-- To prevent blood borders, the drinking age in every State has to
be 21, because that's the only integer that is equal to itself.

-- A new scientific study published in the New England Journal of
Medicine conclusively establishes that the politicians you voted
against have a right to impose this law on you.

-- Statistical analysis of historical crash data proves that the
United States of America ought not to be a free country, with
liberty and justice for all, where the citizen decides what to
drink, where parents govern their child who still lives in their
house, where the punishment for drunk driving is handed out to the
drunk drivers.

-- Freeways are more important than freedom, -- especially when
it's your freedom, not ours -- so we sold your freedom to get
more highway construction money from Congress, (like a mother
selling her daughter for cocaine money,) and we still expect
you to respect it.

-- Drinking alcohol during pregnancy harms the baby, so we impose
Prohibition on men under 21 and not on pregnant women 21 and older.

-- The drinking age saves more lives on the roads than could be
saved by doing what it takes to eliminate drunk driving.

-- A combination of driving inexperience and alcohol make you a
greater danger on the road, whether you drive or not, and that
gives us the right to punish you when you drink alcohol, whether
you drive or not.

-- Don't drive drunk? We can list some other crimes you never
commit, as an excuse to deny liberty to you: murder, rape,
assault...

-- Everybody who drinks under age is immature and irresponsible
because they're doing something that is illegal, as well it should
be, because they're so immature and irresponsible.

-- Liquor corporations have the nerve to advertize their wares,
and we have more respect for their First Amendment right to free
speech than we have for your God-given right to drink the beverage
of your choice.

-- We can't stop older drunks from freely exercising their right to
practice alcoholism, because they hold too much political power,
but some of them started as teenagers and never had an opportunity
to quit since then, so we punish you instead.

-- You shouldn't destroy your brain while it is only 95 percent
developed. You should wait until it is completely developed and
then destroy it, like we did.

-- Even though the drinking age law is imposed on you by morons who
cannot see the obvious flaws in these absurd arguments, it is
embellished with a fancy seal, and the Governor scribbled his
autograph on it, so you have a sacred duty to obey it.

Translated by Tom Alciere
Webmaster, Underage Drinkers Against Drunk Driving

[Edited for spelling by the Holder of the Red Pen]