Comment by dhosek | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dhosek | Hacker News Reader

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Wisconsin was one of the states with a drinking age of 18 while Illinois had 21. The border between the states was referred to as a "blood border" because of the large number of drunk driving fatalities of 18–20 year olds crossing the border to be able to legally buy alcohol.

So, yes, the fact that the drinking age was 21 didn't prevent me from consuming excessive quantities of alcohol during my first three years of college¹, but it also eliminated differential situations like Illinois-Wisconsin which had a measurable impact on reducing DUI fatalities, so it was a bit more than not much.

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1. During the late 80s, the dorm soda machines were stocked by the students. Many of the machines had a slot dedicated to beer (often a "random" slot where you took your chances. You might get something good, you might get Coors Light. The soda machine of the era were capable of dispensing glass bottles of beers even though they were designed for cans. Mostly capable. Occasionally, your 60 cents would end up buying you a pile of broken glass and beer foam. Regardless, having campus being the only place to feasibly buy alcohol meant that drunk driving incidents were rare to non-existent.

Is that any different from the large number of DUIs in and around dry counties? If you make it so that people have to drive somewhere else to drink then you're going to have some of those people making the return trip drunk.

I went to college in 2010, and it's unreal to hear about beer vending machines.

I'm a bit older than you - maybe a decade.

I can't beleive beer vending, either, but I do remember cigarette machines.

I graduated in Massachusetts in 1979. I've never seen a beer vending machine.

But even after age 21 drinking came in in the state, most of the bars where I went to school were perfectly fine with a college ID with no age on it. (And my drivers license at the time was an unlaminated piece of index stock with no photo.)

The beer vending was semi-underground. The machines were kept in semi-private locations (dorm lounge or a store-room that only students had access to), administration looked the other way and if service was needed from the vending machine company, the beer would be removed and replaced with soda for the duration of the service visit (and the labels on the buttons changed to more innocent choices). On-campus underage drinking was widely tolerated. My cohort was probably the last to have such freedom. There were a number of serious alcohol poisoning incidents and the lax approach to on-campus alcohol came to an end in the course of the 90s.

1983. USAF dorms had beer vending machines. Cans, 50 cents. Also in that time period, at "locally owned" establishments, a DD-2 (your ID card), was all it took to buy a drink. Even if you were 18.

Graduated in 85. Drinking age was 21 in my state.

First two years, any student could sign out the dorm lounge and with $40 and the school would provide 1/2 keg of beer, $80 would get you (2) 1/2 kegs, $120 etc.

Spring weekend, not break, First two years $5 wrist band let you drink Friday, Saturday and Sunday, regardless of age. The school provided the beer, and a constant run of bands on 3 alternating stages.

The end of my 2nd year, there was a really bad drunk driving accident with 3 underage students killed, the school stopped sponsoring alcohol at events. They also started enforcing drinking age laws.

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