Underage drinking in Pennsylvania

Underage drinking in Pennsylvania contributes to many accidents. Motor vehicle accidents that pose the greatest threat to the lives of America's teens. Safety experts, police and educators identify three major causes of teenage auto accidents:

• Risk Taking
• Inexperience and Immaturity
• Alcohol

In Pennsylvania, a person under 21 commits a crime if he or she drinks, possesses, transports, buys or even tries to buy alcohol.

Case law says any detectable alcohol on a minor's breath is sufficient to sustain a charge of underage drinking. For minors, police can and do use a device for a preliminary breath test (PBT) which does not have to be calibrated and tested as a breathalyzer; but it is good enough evidence to convict.

Significantly fewer teens are drinking and driving since many states, including Pennsylvania, passed stricter drinking and driving laws. Currently, all states have a legal blood alcohol concentration (BAC) level of .02 percent for drivers under 21.

A teen drinking and driving survey was conducted by the American Journal of Public Health. Researchers surveyed 5,000 high school seniors in 30 states that had lowered the teen BAC limit and compared those findings to data collected before the laws were passed.

The study found that drinking and driving among teens has decreased by 20 percent. Of those teens who had five or more drinks, about 23 percent no longer get behind the wheel of a car. The study also found that the percentage of teens who rode with a driver who had consumed five or more drinks decreased by nearly 14 percent.*

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