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There has been an alarming rise in the number of alcohol related crashes since the legal age of drinking was lowered six years ago, two new studies have revealed.
Researchers from Massey and Otago Universities claim that if the age was raised, thousands of serious injuries and dozens of fatalities would be avoided.
It is already known that alcohol is related to a staggering one-third of all fatal crashes involving 15 to 24 year-olds.
There was a steady fall in drink driving incidents during the 1990s, but Massey University researcher Sally Casswell says they have found that a dramatic upward trend occurred from the moment alcohol purchasing laws were relaxed in 1999.
"It clearly has impacted on alcohol-related traffic crashes and we've seen this quite major increase in the three years since the law changed."
She says that from the date the drinking age was lowered to 18, alcohol-related crashes involving 18 to 19-year-olds began to show a relentless increase.
"From the point of view of people who have been working to reduce alcohol-related crashes quite hard over that decade and seeing that very pleasing result in terms of the decline, it must be concerning for them to see the alcohol related crashes going up again."
Progressive MPs Matt Robson and Jim Anderton want to see the drinking age changed back to 20, and their bill is in front of a parliamentary select committee.
"This research shows us categorically as anything we have seen that if the age is put back to 20 we're going to save thousands of hospitalisations of young people [aged] 15 to 19 and we're going to save hundreds of young people dying on our roads," Anderton says.
The new research supports the Progressive's reasons for their bill, with claims that if the drinking age had stayed at 20, New Zealand would have avoided 2,400 serious injuries and 72 deaths over the past six years.
As the bill is at the select committee state, it will be up to the next government to decide whether to keep it alive.
