How do other countries compare to the United States in incidence of alcohol-related problems?
In terms of alcohol-impaired driving and related fatalities, a recent NHTSA study that compared DUI laws in the United States to those in comparable nations, such as the European Union States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and Brazil, found that the United States had the highest proportion of traffic fatalities that were alcohol-related among the 12 countries reporting data. The same study found that the United States has the highest legal BAC limit for impaired driving—.10 at the time of publication (2000)—and relatively lax enforcement as compared to nations like Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, and Spain where mandatory random breath testing and sobriety checkpoints were reported to be frequent and prevalent. The legal drinking age of all countries in the report was 18, with Japan and Canada being the only exceptions. Japan sets 20 as its legal limit, while the legal drinking age in Canada is 19 in all provinces except for Alberta, Quebec, and Manitoba, where people can drin
