Latest Ancillary Law Study Has Major Plot Twist

A new 2016 study by MADD members James C. Fell and Robert Voas, among others, looked at the impact of various ancillary laws related to the 21 drinking age on traffic deaths involving drivers under 21.  Or more accurately, it looked at the effects of such laws on the ratio of "alcohol-related" to non-alcohol traffic deaths among that age group, biased as that may very well be.  Twenty different laws were studied, and the ones that showed statistically significant reductions were as follows:

Possession of alcohol (-7.7%)
Purchase of alcohol (-4.2%)
Use alcohol and lose your license (-7.9%)
Zero tolerance 0.02 BAC (-2.9%)
Age of bartender ≥21 (-4.1%)
State responsible beverage service program (-3.8%)
Fake ID support provisions for retailers (-11.9%)

Two other laws were also statistically significant, though not particularly large in practical terms:

Dram shop liability (-2.5%)
Social host civil liability (-1.7%)

And now for the plot twist:  There were two laws associated with significant increases in alcohol-related fatal crash ratios:

Prohibition of furnishing alcohol to minors (+7.2%)
Registration of beer kegs (+9.6%)

Yes, you read that right.  Two ancillary laws that would be expected to greatly enhance the supposed effectiveness of the 21 drinking age actually had a perverse effect.  And this calls into question whether even any of these laws, including the 21 drinking age itself, actually save any lives at all.  Let that sink in.

As for zero-tolerance laws, one should recall Darren Grant's landmark 2010 study that thoroughly debunked their effectiveness in reducing traffic fatalities.  As for use-and-lose laws, under which a person under 21 can have their driver's license suspended or revoked for simply drinking in their own home even when no driving is involved, they clearly seem to work at cross-purposes with DUI laws, and would likely be made irrelevant with tougher DUI laws in the first place.

Additionally, another recent study in 2014 by some of the same authors as the first one found that social host liability laws apparently had no significant effect on traffic deaths.  Combined with the weak results in the aforementioned study, this blows yet another hole in the pro-21 argument, as one would expect such laws to give more "teeth" to the 21 drinking age.  As for the apparently strong results of the anti-fake ID laws, that could simply be because the 21 drinking age itself (and apparently some of its ancillary laws) may actually increase fatalities in the long run, and reducing the use of fake IDs may take some of this dangerous edge off.  Thus, the effects of such fake ID laws may not necessarily be a net benefit compared to a drinking age of 18.

Thus, these new studies should be seen as the final nail in the coffin for the 21 drinking age.   Looks like Miron and Tetelbaum (2009) were right in that the supposed lifesaving effect of that ageist abomination was really just a mirage all along.