Pass Life Saving Laws

States should adopt laws that will prevent alcohol-related deaths and injuries among young people. Graduated drivers' license laws," happy hour" restrictions and similar policies change the context in which young people drink.

These laws have been shown to reduce underage drinking and fatal accidents among 15-20 year olds.

Graduated Driver's Licenses. Laws that govern the age and terms under which adolescents can get a license to drive also affect the alcohol-related death and collision rates.

There are many variations of these laws around the country. In some states, 15 year olds can get a full license. In others, teens have to wait until they are 16 ½ and then settle for a license that restricts the hours they can drive and prohibits them from having their friends in the car.

The states with the most restrictive graduated driver's license laws have significantly lower rates of alcohol-related crashes than the states with the least restrictive laws.

Happy Hour Regulations. States and communities that ban "happy hour" drink price promotions or require registration and identification of beer keg purchases have lower rates of teen binge drinking than states and communities with no regulatory restrictions.

Keg registration laws. Keg registration laws require kegs of beer to be tagged with an identification number and information to be recorded about the purchaser. Sometimes a deposit is required as an incentive to return the keg properly tagged.

These laws make it easier to track the whereabouts of kegs and the individuals using them, including underage youth and the adults who may have provided the keg for them. The specific requirements stipulated by these policies vary widely in the information collected from the purchaser, amount of deposit, penalties for loss of tags or failure to return kegs, and method of tagging.

Social host laws. Social host laws hold noncommercial servers of alcohol (such as homeowners or parents) liable in the event that they provide alcohol to a minor or an obviously inebriated individual who later becomes involved in an accident that causes injury or death to a third party.