That’s just a US quirk. In many countries you can buy alcohol when you’re 18+.
It’s odd that you can do everything but drink. Like you can go to work, drive home to your wife and kids, but can’t have a beer lol.
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> That’s just a US quirk
My understanding is it’s because of car culture. Drunk-driving deaths drove up the drinking age [1].
[1] https://www.britannica.com/topic/Why-Is-the-US-Drinking-Age-...
They could fix this by lowering the drinking age. Not by raising it. If you have two years of experience being drunk and then start driving you know exactly what you are in for.
If you’ve been confidently driving for years and then suddenly pair that with alcohol… complete opposite effect.
Also it would increase illegal transfer of alcohol to underage peers, in theory. But high school kids who want beer have no major problems getting already.
It’s up to each state, but the federal government threatens funding if they get out of line.
Seems like they should have raised the driving age. Also, having taken a driving exam in NA and EU, NA is laughably easy. So not a surprise that drivers are unprepared, especially young ones.
It’s hard in many transit-desert communities to get around without a car, heck where I lived the DL age was 15.