Poll: Drinking age changing to 21
- Thread starter shannon.archer
- Start date
You should see our driver's license laws. As a late entry to the wonderful world of driver's licensing (just started down that path) I am at the beginning of a very long road. So I intimately understand the road ahead of me (a road which, it should be noted, each successive government feels it must put extra potholes in to 'look tough with those damn irresponsible kids'):Saskwach said:
1)Pass a basic road knowledge test. 30 questions, minimum 25 right to pass. Not very hard. Having passed you can now drive as an L-plate driver. This means you must a) display L plates in the front and rear windows of your car and b) only drive with someone in the passenger side who has had a full license for more than 5 years. You'll be doing this a lot because your next test is:
2)A driving test. This test is notoriously draconian. The vast majority of the testers are old men who've been doing this for so many years (and for whom the paperwork for failing someone is much less than for passing) that they are now crotchety and angry. I've known people who failed the test because they didn't check their blind spot as they turned into the turning lane of a median strip (if that wasn't clear, basically a turning lane for which there could have been no one behind him). You will likely have to take this test 2-3 times, with a waiting list of a few months each time.
Congratulations! You have your Phase 2 Learner's license! What does that entail? You're still on your L plates, which means you still need a 5-year-fully-licensed passenger at all times - and you need to accrue 25 hours behind the wheel, logging the times you did this (minimum 15 minutes each time). There is a 6 month minimum period in Phase 2, so don't expect that you can just breeze through the 25 and move on to P plates. Oh I didn't mention P plates did I? In that case:
3)Finish those 25 hours and pass a computerised hazard perception test and you're on P - provisional - plates. You can drive alone. Well done! But wait - there's still restrictions. For instance: you cannot drive with a BAC (Blood Alcohol Concentration) over 0.00%. (Hell, you could be done for the drinking you did the night before!)
You may not drive between 12am and 5pm unless driving to or from a place of work or study. This means you cannot be the designated driver for a group of drinkers, and you cannot drive yourself home from a party that went any length of time. It's as if the government doesn't even understand how drink driving works.
You will have red-on-white P plates (which must be displayed) for 6 months, and then you will have 'green' P plates for another 18. After this you will finally have:
4)A full license.
(The anger in that rant was at the dills who made this terrible ladder of pain and tedium, not you. Apologies if it seemed that way.)[/quote]
Wait a minute dont you have automatics over there? Why so much red tape 0_o I could fall asleep and drive an automatic its like driving a freaking bumper car.
Lol, Ottawa would still be safe because we can just run to Quebec, buy all our alcohol, and then come back to Ontario where the bars aren't all filled with 15 year old girls or cougars.Lullabye said:
Raising the legal age will not stop the people who want to drink from drinking.
I agree with the OP though, it's completely unfair that you can join the army, smoke, pay taxes and whatever, but not have a pint. Raising the age just won't make the rate of teen drinking go down any...
I agree with the OP though, it's completely unfair that you can join the army, smoke, pay taxes and whatever, but not have a pint. Raising the age just won't make the rate of teen drinking go down any...
The United States is a nation of Laws: Badly written, and randomly enforced. I can't remember who said that, but I thought it was fantastically appropriate.Valate said:
It's wrong and stupid.
Let 'em have half a glass of wine with lunch and a beer with Sunday dinner from age 14 so they can get used to drinking sensibly and sociably rather than sneaking booze into the woods and doing silly things until they're old enough and then getting rat-a___d every Friday and Saturday night.
In France, drinking wine with family and friends is normal from mid-teens onwards. In Britain, it's legal to have kids with you for dinner in a pub and to give anyone 14+ alcohol in your own home, and anyone 18+ can buy alcohol in pub, inn, hotel, off-licence or supermarket, but we have a "culture" (apologies to microbiologists) of getting drunk on strong lager among some members (only just) of our society. In the USA, it's illegal to be within a hundred feet of alcohol until you're 21 and illegal to put alcohol within 100 feet of anyone under 21 and you can be shot for having an open bottle with you in a public place and if you tell someone under 18 you like a particular wine they hang you by the wrists over an alligator pit. Guess how drunkenness and alcoholism rates in France and the USA compare to those in Britain. Here, saying someone drinks means they're not tee-total. In the USA, it means he or she is a sot. In France, they'll give you a funny look and say "Oui, je boisse aussi, et je mange, comme tout le monde," or something like that.
Let 'em have half a glass of wine with lunch and a beer with Sunday dinner from age 14 so they can get used to drinking sensibly and sociably rather than sneaking booze into the woods and doing silly things until they're old enough and then getting rat-a___d every Friday and Saturday night.
In France, drinking wine with family and friends is normal from mid-teens onwards. In Britain, it's legal to have kids with you for dinner in a pub and to give anyone 14+ alcohol in your own home, and anyone 18+ can buy alcohol in pub, inn, hotel, off-licence or supermarket, but we have a "culture" (apologies to microbiologists) of getting drunk on strong lager among some members (only just) of our society. In the USA, it's illegal to be within a hundred feet of alcohol until you're 21 and illegal to put alcohol within 100 feet of anyone under 21 and you can be shot for having an open bottle with you in a public place and if you tell someone under 18 you like a particular wine they hang you by the wrists over an alligator pit. Guess how drunkenness and alcoholism rates in France and the USA compare to those in Britain. Here, saying someone drinks means they're not tee-total. In the USA, it means he or she is a sot. In France, they'll give you a funny look and say "Oui, je boisse aussi, et je mange, comme tout le monde," or something like that.
I think the way to get kids to at least think hard before they drink is to give them drippingly alcoholic parents for a month (I'm not talking violent, BTW). My dad's been a recovering alcoholic since before I was born, and both my parents have been smoking since they were teenagers, and I see how those have affected them and it's made me actually think. Also they explained the basics of "the birds and the bees" when I was 6 so I didn't have to have that confusion or find things out the hard way.
I find it stupid that you can legally be called an adult, with the responcibilities that entails (for the most part, things that will affect your day to day life in a major way) but not be able to go and enjoy a pint in public without getting cuffed until a year later? It's not so much the fact that it isn't readily available if you want to go hide yourself in a house/camp ground/other hiding place, but that you gain responcibilities much GREATER than drinking before you can drink.wonkey20 said:
It just seems wrong in my mind.
P.S. I didn't drink before I was nineteen. I choose to obey all laws (included ones I find are injust/stupid)
Welcome to America, man. I've thought the same thing for a while. I don't drink, but a friend does, and he got busted for underage drinking, and all I could think was, "why is the drinking age 21?" This is a friend who, due to unfortunate circumstances, has essentialy been on his own since age 16. And he's doing just fine. So why can't he have a beer or two when he wants?
I'm not the biggest fan of alcohol, but the little Irish alcoholic inside me says that this is a bad idea. =-/
wow they have been trying to do that in canada too..shannon.archer said:
its 18 in most provinces, but in mine its 19
who cares about drinking age, you can still drink anyway
all age rating laws do fuck all to stop people from doing them so it can be any age people will still do it
all age rating laws do fuck all to stop people from doing them so it can be any age people will still do it
Okay, couple of things:I Framed OJ said:
Yes, if you making something illegal, the people who once did it would (if they continue) be criminals. That's not an argument against making things illegal, since taken to its logical conclusion, we can end all criminal behavior right now by just saying nothing is illegal. Yes, we'll make more underage drinkers, but making prostitution illegal made for more women who were criminal offenders for being prostitutes. Argue the value of the law, not whether it will mean more people are breaking the law.
There's no evidence that a lower drinking age leads to less binge drinking, nor that a higher drinking age leads to more. There's no evidence of an extra enticement of the illegality of any substance (drugs, booze, or cigarettes) which informs people's decisions. If there were, America would have a higher rate of binge drinking than Europe, and Australia. It doesn't, which isn't really much of a shock.
Over here in Britain, the law is more of a "guideline" with this stuff.
Have fun sobering up, Y'damn Ozzies!
Have fun sobering up, Y'damn Ozzies!
I don't care it's still only 18 here (selfish I know) and only my country of residence concerns me