...Driving is not mandatory, but it is a preferred method of transportation by a majority of people. It is a fast way to travel to get to distances that are around the area and there are no scheduled times in place that determine when a person is not allowed to use a car. However, rules are placed to keep people safe and have the system working more methodically. Currently, for the state of Virginia, the earliest that a person can receive their driver’s license is at the age of 16 and 3 months old. Yet, since their are so many people on the road, it can become hectic and sometimes unsafe. People wonder if being 16 is too young for people to be on the road, and would rather it be changed to 18. Seeing how frequent car crashes take place for people around that age, it is understandable why someone would want the minimum age to be changed. The driving age should be raised to 18 years old because younger drivers are expected to be more mature at that age and it will ultimately lower the amount of injuries, fatalities, and deaths...
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...First and foremost, the minimum driving age must be raise from 16 to 18 years old because this will save families money. For instance, by extending the driving age parents are able to better control where their gas money goes. To clarify, every Friday night a teen comes to his parents and insists e needs forty dollars for gas;however, he only puts twenty dollars in the car and uses te other twenty dollars for pizza and the movies. In addition, when teenagers have to wait an extra two years to receive their license, parents are saving money by not paying the exorbitant insurance prices. Clearly, when the driving age is changed to 18, families are able to save a large amount of money by taking away teens excuses for “gas funds” and not having...
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...research paper Why Not Change the Drinking Age Back to 18? In the United States of America you are considered a legal adult at the age of 18 years old. You have all the major rights of a fully grown adult, voting, enlisting in the military, buying a house, buying tobacco products and many more. However there is one right that was taken away from the 18 year old adult back in 1984. In 1984 the National Minimum Drinking Age Act was put into place which changed the legal minimum drinking age from 18 years old to 21. Does this law mean that you are not really a mature adult until you are 21 or should the drinking age be brought back down to 18 when you receive all the other rights of a mature adult. It makes perfect sense that this right should be returned to young adults for plenty of reasons and also holds potential solutions to one of the nation’s biggest alcohol related problems. What does it mean to be an adult? United States law states that you are legally considered an adult at the age of 18. It makes sense right? You can buy a house, enlist in the U.S. military, get married and loads of other rights you don’t have until the age of 18. But United States law also states that all states must enforce a legal minimum drinking age of 21. We are the only major nation to have such a high drinking age. The drinking age wasn’t always this high though. On July 17th 1984 the national minimum drinking age act was passed which meant that 18 year old young adults could no longer legally...
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...Imagine a 16 year old girl that's going to drive and her two friends getting into a car she starts driving and right away there’s a stop light, while they're waiting the friend in the backs asks the girl driving to turn around to look at a text on her phone as the girl turns around to look unknowingly her foot slips off the break and starts rolling into the intersection and nobody notices because they're all still looking at the girl's phone seconds later a car hits the passenger side and flips the car, by 12 hours later they all had passed at the hospital. Teens are reckless their brains are not mature enough to be driving and not developed enough to make quick rational decisions when driving. This is a reason why the legal driving limit should be raised to 18. Why risk your teen’s life by letting them drive instead of waiting two years till their minds are a little more developed....
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...paper I plan on discussing the drinking limit and why I feel it should be lowered to 18 instead on 21. There has been an ongoing controversy in the United States on whether the drinking age should be lowered to 18, like most of the world, or if it should stay at 21. Underage drinking has been a major controversial issue for years; yet why is it not under control? Teenagers are continuing to buy alcohol with fake identification cards, get into bars, and drink illegally. As a teen, I have proof that these things are going on not only in college but in high school as well. There are a lot of factors that come together to why the drinking age should be lowered to 18. The most obvious reason is too many people are drinking before they are 21. Liquor stores, bars, and clubs all want to make money and if they can get away with selling to underage teens then they will. My opinion along with a growing number of people across the country is questioning the reason of the 21 legal drinking ages. Throughout history, people have always wanted what they can’t have. Today, many teenagers experience different things in the world. Teens are always eager to try something different or new. One of the things that teenagers try is drinking alcohol. Around the 1980s many states changed the legal drinking age from 18 to 21. The theory behind this was, that if you increase the drinking age, people will drink more responsibly, because with age comes responsibility. Unfortunately, the people who made these...
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...need help calming down. A drink of alcohol would do just the trick. However, you are just an 18 year old adult and not a 21 year old adult so you cannot legally consume alcohol yet. But don’t worry, you can still fight and die for your country. How can we possibly send 18 year olds to war, but not allow them to drink alcohol? To adults under the age of 21, alcohol is seen as a forbidden fruit. Since they cannot legally have it, they want it that much more. So when they are granted an opportunity to drink, they do so in a dangerous way. This binge drinking is where many alcohol related injuries come from, and what must be decreased. According to our laws, an 18 year old has enough maturity and judgment to drive a car, sign a legally binding contract, perform jury duty, and vote. Why shouldn’t they be able to decide if they want a drink or not? The drinking age should be lowered to the age of majority, which at this time, is 18. This decrease in the drinking age will allow young adults to safely consume alcohol in regulated environments. In turn, this will decrease the risk of alcohol-related injuries that result from unsupervised drinking. When a person turns 18 they are treated like adults, but with this new policy, they will truly be adults. First we must examine how the drinking age got set at its current minimum. After the repeal of prohibition in 1933 many states set the legal age...
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...is 21, Drinking should not Happy Birthday! You're finally 18, legally an adult! What are you going to do first? Maybe buy a pack of cigarettes, or a lotto ticket, or porn; because you're an adult you can do anything you want... except buy alcohol. By current law, to buy and drink alcohol legally one must be at least 21 years of age. But why is this magical number 21? As a legal adult, I do not understand the reason behind not allowing me to drink. President Ronald Reagan passed the national minimum drink age law in 1984. The act stipulates a minimum legal age of 21 for the purchase or public possession of any alcoholic beverage, and incorporates sanctions against states whose laws are not in compliance (Daniloff). Many argue that the age was changed to 21 because that is the approximate age that brain development levels off. This seems fairly logical, but is it really? And is it fair? Many feel that 21 years of age is when someone truly becomes an “adult” and that is a fitting age to legalize the use of alcohol, I disagree. When one turns 18, in this country, they are legally an adult no ifs, ands, or buts and should have all the rights as any other citizen of this great country. As an adult, one can legally vote, serve in the military, get married, get a credit card, buy cigarettes, gamble, etc. the list goes on. So, in all aspects of life, when someone turns 18 they are an adult and responsible for themselves, except alcohol; so the government should not limit this right...
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...Drinking Age to 18 Danielle Gonzales The government can trust those between the age of 18 and 20 to do many things, but they cannot treat them like full adults and allow them to drink alcohol. You will find that many Colleges and Universities disagree with the legal drinking age. In fact, they believe that rising the drinking age has increased the amount of ‘binge’ drinkers and only made our countries drinking problems worse. Eighty-five percent of twenty year old Americans reported that they had used alcohol. (Johnson) Two out of five said they had binged within the previous month. To ‘binge,’ is to consume five or more drinks at one time. (Engs) “The period since the twenty-one minimum drinking age took affect has been marked by a shift from beer to hard liquor,” Seaman wrote in Time “consumed not in large social settings, since that is now illegal, but furtively and dangerously in students residences. In my reporting at colleges around the country, I did not meet any presidents or deans who felt the twenty-one year age minimum helps their efforts to curb the abuse of alcohol on their campuses.” (Balk) A kid is going to drink if he or she wants to regardless whether the law says eighteen or twenty-one. In an alcohol related situation you are more likely going to hear “I don’t drink, thank you,” than “I better not, I’m not 21 yet.” When colleges and University presidents disagree with the drinking age, something has got to be done. If the drinking age were changed to 18 years...
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...Debate Paper A topic with considerable debate is the legal age to consume alcoholic beverages. “Most cultures where alcohol consumption is legal have a mandated threshold age at which buying and/or consuming alcohol becomes permitted” (International Center for Alcohol Policies, 2011, para. 5). Currently, the United States has set the legal age to drink at 21. The age was once 18; however, society has changed its views concerning this issue. Because the legal drinking age changed to 21 there was an increase in mortality rate at age 21, increase in motor vehicle accidents, and increase in suicides. Even though 18 is considered an adult and a person should be able to make his or her own decisions, the drinking age should not be lowered because teens lack the maturity to handle alcohol and teens are at a higher risk of alcohol-related deaths. This debate has two sides as some people are for lowering the age to 18 again and some against. Many will argue that the average drinking age around the world is 18. According to International Center for Alcohol Policies (2011), “Minimum drinking and purchase ages in countries around the world range from 16 to 25 years of age, with 18 being the most common age limit” (para. 6). Others say that if a person age 18 is old enough to serve and die for his or her country, he or she should be permitted to consume alcoholic beverages. Should the drinking age be lowered to 18? This paper will weigh the pros and cons as well as identify potential...
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...Driving Age Learning to drive is an important part of learning responsibility and adult values. If we keep delaying when kids can learn to drive then young people will never learn responsibility. This essay will include the three strongest reasons why I think that the driving age should stay at 16 years old and reasons why it could be changed to 17 or 18 years old. The first reason I believe the age should remain at 16 years old is maturity. Driving at 16 will allow drivers to have more experience behind the wheel. This will help prepare them for adult life, such as dealing with rush hour traffic and driving their kids to school. Some people might argue that this will give kids too much freedom which may lead them to making bad decisions, such as going to parties where there is drinking involved. I believe that this will actually help build trust and security between you and your parents. The second reason why 16-year-olds should drive is because they can help with family responsibilities. Many families have both parents working or are single-parent families. If 16-year-olds were allowed to drive, they would be able to drive themselves and their siblings to school, work, and activities. They would also be able to help with grocery shopping, picking up dinner, and running other household errands. The argument against this might be that this is too much independence and could lead to poor decision-making as well as putting too much pressure on a teenager to take...
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...Drinking Age Is Not the Solution “In 2005, about 10.8 million persons aged 12 to 20 (28.2 percent of this age group) reported drinking alcohol in the past month. Nearly 7.2 million (18.8 percent) were binge drinkers, and 2.3 million (6.0 percent) were heavy drinkers,” according to the agency, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, in the Department of Health and Human Services. To solve this problem, would be to try to avoid it from happening, and that is, keeping the legal drinking age at twenty-one years old. The minimum drinking age has been an argument as to lowering the drinking age to 18. Candidate Rep. Dennis Kucinich, from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, argues, “Of course, they should be able to drink at age 18, and they should be able to vote at age 16.” Then there are groups that have been formed such as, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, who are strongly against lowering the drinking age to 18 and fully support 21 to be the legal drinking age. Lowering the drinking age to 18 resulted in more car accidents, deaths, and harmful effects to the body at such a younger age. Having the legal drinking age at 21 is for everyone’s own safety and health, also less under age kids will and have the ability to drink. In the 1970’s the drinking age was 18 years old because it was thought if you could fight in the Vietnam War you should be able to drink. However, having the legal drinking age at 18 lead to an outrageous number of younger kids drunk driving, causing...
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...Instructor: David Jenkins, MFA Writing 101S-Introduction to writing 12 June 2014 18-21-18 Happy eighteenth birthday, and welcome to all the new fake adults. They now have the right to be an adult and join the military and fight for our country, purchase pornos, move out of their parents basement, gamble all their life savings away, and smoke as much tobacco products as they’d like, Eighteen year olds can now do everything their parents do except legally consume alcohol. If they are caught in public drinking alcohol they will be arrested. College students and soldiers are being forced to drink unsafely in the privacy of their homes because they are not legally able to purchase or consume alcohol. Minors are surrounded by their drunken peers every day and want to join in on the fun, but can’t legally drink. They are forced to drink heavy amounts of alcohol in a short amount of time, and this leads to alcoholism, drunk driving, heart and liver disease, and alcohol poisoning. Over time lowering the legal drinking age to eighteen will greatly reduce binge drinking which will result in less alcohol related deaths. Binge drinking is having ten or more drinks on one occasion. Binging can lead to violence, alcohol poisoning, drunk driving, and alcoholism, all of which can be deadly. This has become a major problem in the United States. The majority of binge drinkers are minors, people under the legal drinking age of 21. Over the last five years, the number of students binge drinking went...
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...wasn’t old enough. What is the age of responsibility when a person should become an adult or be able to do more mature activities than children? There shouldn’t be a specific age for adulthood that separates from childhood, everyone matures different. Some tasks and activities should be given at different ages for different levels of maturity. Such as drinking alcohol to serving in the military but differentiating from getting a tattoo or a license to drive....
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...April 23rd 2013 There has been an age old conflict regarding the United States military. If you are old enough to fight and die for your country, why are you not old enough to enjoy an alcoholic beverage? Marines who are 18 can be thrown into the very teeth of it. They face death in battle. They make life-and-death decisions in split seconds. But here's a simple choice they can't make: “Miller or Bud?” (Stetz, 2007) Some may argue that 17, 18, 19, and 20 year olds are not capable of handling the responsibilities that go along with consuming alcoholic beverages. To those people I say, if you do not trust someone under the age of 21 to be responsible when it comes to alcohol consumption, then why do you trust them to carry firearms into battle and make life and death situations? In 2007 the United States Marine Corps listened to these complaints from the Marines and decided that Marines, who were overseas, in ports of call where the drinking age was under 21, would allow those Marines to consume alcohol. It is also up to the commanders’ discretion to approve beer being served on special occasions such as returning from war. These Marines would only be allowed to drink on base though. These young people are being asked to make enormous sacrifices, said John McCardell, the former president of Middlebury College in Vermont who runs Choose Responsibility, an organization that wants the drinking age lowered. Yet, when underage Marines come home, they face...
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... thrown out, or changed to better adapt them to society every day. Out of the many laws that come across the table to be looked at or reconsidered, the law prohibiting the consumption of alcohol until the age of 21 in any state is the one needing to be reconsiderred to help the progression of this era. This law has been in effect since the 40th president Ronald Reagan signed the bill to become a law in 1984, and since then many people have agreed with its material as it seems to have bettered the way of life. Even though many are for this ordinance other people have fought against the legal drinking age being 21 and feel it should be lowered to the beginning of adulthood, the age of 18, as this is the...
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