IF I were to write that drinking is a problem at the University, I would likely face an insurmountable flurry of replies detailing why the drinking age is ridiculous and how responsible drinking can be enjoyable and good for your health. I will agree on both counts. Alcohol education, however, is usually limited to encouraging young adults not to drink and drive. So why does it happen so often
Drunk drivers do not take the offense seriously due to weak enforcement and punishment of laws against driving under the influence. In addition, American society offers no way to educate young adults on how to drink responsibly and act responsibly while drinking.
The best way to end drunk driving is to end tolerance of drunk driving. No matter how much you hear about it, no matter how many groups fight about it, and no matter how many "every x minutes" programs you sit through, do not fool yourself into thinking the United States is truly serious about drunk driving. Public outcry may be high, but punishments are staggeringly low. Unless an offender actually hits and harms somebody else, the offense is generally a mere misdemeanor.
Drinking is intentional. Driving is intentional. Both choices are made consciously and before the vehicle is even started. Anybody who went to school in the United States knows that drinking and driving is dangerous and that people die as a result of drunk driving. Putting this together, the offender is making a decision to risk the lives of others by operating a dangerous weapon while under the influence of alcohol. If such a huge decision is punished like a misdemeanor, it will continue to be thought of as one.
Typical punishments range from temporary driver's license suspension to fines and possible short jail time. Second offenses are treated slightly more seriously, but some individuals are permitted to drive after multiple offenses. This is absurd. After three offenses, if even that late, the license of a drunk driver should be suspended permanently. Fines should carry heavy price tags and jail time past one offense should be inevitable. By increasing the severity and, more importantly, the certainty of punishment, drunk driving will be viewed as a more serious offense.
Another primary factor in alcoholic mishaps is the poor education of individuals concerning alcohol. High school teachers and beer commercials may emphasize the need to drink responsibly, but when nearly everybody is having their first alcohol experiences with a group of buddies when it may still be illegal for them to consume, how can they?
Nobody is teaching young adults how to drink responsibly, just that they should, which is more than a bit senseless.
Rather than fear alcohol and avoid education concerning alcohol, the United States could make its roads safer and its citizens more responsible by encouraging appropriate amounts of drinking even in individuals under the arbitrary age of twenty-one.If the age was made eighteen or lower and carried some sort of drinking learner's period for a few years, people could learn about the effects of alcohol and the principles of responsible alcohol consumption before their first day in a frat house.
As an analogy, consider again drinking and driving, this time separately. Driving is an activity that is only permitted for individuals over a certain age, determined by states, and which typically has some learning period during which the young adult is monitored by his or her parents or another adult driver while driving. It is entirely reasonable to suggest that at some age -- perhaps near sixteen or eighteen -- teenagers could be allowed to enjoy alcoholic beverages in the presence of a responsible adult. In this way, teenagers could learn safe, responsible drinking before they actually begin drinking with friends or alone.
Drunk driving has two major causes. One cause stems from the low level of punishment for drunk driving offenses, which leads people to not take drunk driving seriously. A slap on the wrist is neither a strong deterrent nor the hallmark of a serious offense.
The second cause stems from the high drinking age in the United States, which leads many individuals to illegally consume alcohol and do so for their first time in situations not conducive to responsible drinking. Nobody can be expected to drink responsibly if they are given little guidance as to how that can be accomplished. The United States has a problem in drunk driving, but it is a problem that our legislation has created and has the power to rectify.
Jason Shore's column appears Fridays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at jshore@cavalier.com.
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