Their findings were confirmed in a 2001 paper by Swarthmore and University of Maryland economists Thomas Dee and William Evans. “The nationwide increases in MLDA (minimum legal drinking age) may have merely shifted some of the fatality risks from teens to young adults,” they conclude after examining multiple factors. Raising drinking ages from 19 to 21 to cut 18- and 19-year olds’ traffic deaths by 5 percent but increased fatalities among 22- and 23-year olds by 8 percent. “The magnitude of mortality redistribution,” Dee/Evans report, “is quite large.”

Mike Males, “Myths About Youth,” in Everything You Know is Wrong, edited by Russ Rick (123)