Drinking, consent, smoking, and driving laws according to age.

[Baruch]

Where i live drinking age is 16, driving age is 18. Makes sense to me. You Should be able to Discovery what drinking does to you before you are allowed behind a steering wheel.

Many Europeans used to drink wine, because the water was toxic.  My father was shocked when as a young US sailor on shore leave in Naples, he visited an Italian family (my dad could pass for Italian and the taxi cab driver took a shine to him) and the little kids were drinking wine (and younger than 16).  Water was for poor people back in the day ... the better to get rid of them.

[Mr.Obvious]

In Belgium that used to be table beer (a rather weak beer, say 1.5°), rather than wine.

[Baruch]

It took the geniuses in London, around 1850, to finally figure out the obvious.  You don't take water from the Thames, downstream from where you are also dumping your sewage.  This didn't matter when things were Celtic villages, but by 1850 London was the largest city on Earth.

[drunkenshoe]

These age limits are not something about an individual's maturity level. This is not about individuals at all. This is about the whole society, about everyone.

Strict age limit is a basic principle in law to protect minors from themselves, because we need to make a generalisation; bring a standard where there is no mental fortitude and experience to make the neccesary judgement. Yes, they will do whatever they will do. But there is a very big difference between letting kids do certain things at an early age and them attempting to do it against the knowledge that they are doing something defined harmful and illegal for them. That's why there are strict age limits and should be. Personal experiences do not mean anything in this topic.

If you think a 16 year old should be able to act like an adult, because he tends to behave more 'mature' than his peers according to somebody's standards, then you are either a 16 year old or not thinking like an adult.

[Baruch]

Adults are just evil doers crapping all over the youth's mojo.  More of the 1960s model projected into the diaper class.  Babies of the world unite, you have only to lose your diaper!

[widdershins]

These age limits are not something about an individual's maturity level. This is not about individuals at all. This is about the whole society, about everyone.

Strict age limit is a basic principle in law to protect minors from themselves, because we need to make a generalisation; bring a standard where there is no mental fortitude and experience to make the neccesary judgement. Yes, they will do whatever they will do. But there is a very big difference between letting kids do certain things at an early age and them attempting to do it against the knowledge that they are doing something defined harmful and illegal for them. That's why there are strict age limits and should be. Personal experiences do not mean anything in this topic.

If you think a 16 year old should be able to act like an adult, because he tends to behave more 'mature' than his peers according to somebody's standards, then you are either a 16 year old or not thinking like an adult.

I don't disagree with that, but I also don't think the age at which you can sign 2 years of your life away to go overseas and kill people should be lower than the age at which you can legally buy a scratch ticket.

[drunkenshoe]

I don't disagree with that, but I also don't think the age at which you can sign 2 years of your life away to go overseas and kill people should be lower than the age at which you can legally buy a scratch ticket.

The younger the people, they are more prone to be fooled to become mercenaries and participate in meaningless mass destruction and annihilation around the world to make the filhty rich more rich without questioning anything. Lower age limit is beneficial and profitable here. 

The age limits about products like dope, tobacco, alcohol and what is considered as 'gambling' is higher than some other age limits, because they are considered addictive and the younger the people are using or participating, they are more prone to get addicted and percieve it as a life style. So the higher age limit is beneficial and profitable here. 

[Baruch]

Arrh ... loved the good old days when you could press-gang local young louts into the King's Navy ... and feed them wormy bread and mildly saline drinking water with a little rum in it for taste, as we take them on the pleasure cruise to sunny plague infested Jamaica.

There are always too many young people, just ask Europe.  In the past they knew what to do with them, but no longer.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Arrh ... loved the good old days when you could press-gang local young louts into the King's Navy ... and feed them wormy bread and mildly saline drinking water with a little rum in it for taste, as we take them on the pleasure cruise to sunny plague infested Jamaica.

There are always too many young people, just ask Europe.  In the past they knew what to do with them, but no longer.

They still know what to do with them, but wars are expensive and tend to damage your cities a bit as Europe found out the hard way..

[Baruch]

They still know what to do with them, but wars are expensive and tend to damage your cities a bit as Europe found out the hard way..

Not if you colonize ... just need to attack more countries like Libya, that don't have nukes yet!

[t.frank.carter]

Having back in the day scraped a few drunk drivers off the road, my opinion on drinking is older rather than younger. Used to be 21 in my state, now 18. I think it should be 21. Never driven drunk but I grew up with cowboys in high school that did it routinely. No thanks.

Ever see a '56 Corvette that hit a large boulder at 70 mph? Ever see a family of 6 front ended by a truck at a combined speed of over 100? Peel a decapitated head off the grille of a truck? Dragged a 6 year old corpse out of the back of a station wagon that was so broken up the body sagged like a sack of grain? Sorry, my long experience growing up with and then raising teenagers says giving them access to alcohol at 16 is a bad idea.

I couldn't agree more. I've been a cop close to 20 years and I've had to endure more than my fair share of horrible car accidents, usually perpetrated by drunks and inexperienced drivers. There has to be some level of experience and education when we grant someone the right to drive a car.

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[mauricio]

I couldn't agree more. I've been a cop close to 20 years and I've had to endure more than my fair share of horrible car accidents, usually perpetrated by drunks and inexperienced drivers. There has to be some level of experience and education when we grant someone the right to drive a car.

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Welcome to the forum. I think the perspective of an experienced cop would be a great addition to the discourse of the forum.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

All I have to say about you youngins comes from Bye Bye Birdie..

Why can't they be like we were, perfect in every way?
What's the matter with kids today?