Reply #30: Yes, I'm on the young side...

[redeye]

...a week before 18 to be exact. I still think that if Europe has lower car accident rates with higher speed limits that no one cares about anyway (in Germany there is simply no speed limits on highways) and with drinking age at 18, then either American culture is to blame or there is some governmental policy that will enable us to enjoy the best of all worlds (drinking age at 18, higher speed limit, lower car accident rate).

Moreover, your argument that once people reach the drinking age their attention slacks off is kind of a boomerang. Some 19-year-olds nowadays drink because it's illegal for them; therefore, one could expect that they won't drink once drinking age is lowered. In other words, not only does reducing the drinking age show that there is in fact a problem of teenage drinking (something that increasing the drinking age kind of brushes off), but also fewer teenagers will drink.

As for gasoline usage, I don't see any reason why a nation 5000 kilometers side-to-side reduces its speed limit to reduce gas usage (by how much, by the way?), especially when there're cars that drive per liter what a large SUV drives per gallon.

Finally, a point about accidents: to a degree, they depend on what speed everyone's driving at. I hear that on the I-80 near Atlanta, for example, people are driving way above the speed limit so driving at 55 is mroe dangerous than driving, say, 80.