Did the drinking age reduction lead to more teenage road deaths?

Propoents on increasing the drinking age to 20 claim that after it was lowered in 1999, the number of 18 and 19 year olds in alcohol related crashes increased.

Dean Knight points out that the the number of crashes actually decreased. A study claims that because the decrease was less than the decrease for 20 – 24 year olds, this was a “relative increase”. One can debate the validity of such a comparison, but it is important to note that there was not any actual increase in alcohol related crashes after the law change.