Changing laws?

There have been a lot of driving- and alcohol-related deaths and accidents in the news recently, usually due to somebody disregarding the law; underage drinkers, unlicenced drivers, drunk drivers, speeding, etc.

And I have continually noticed commenters on these articles suggesting the laws need to change. They say the legal drinking age should be raised; the driving age should be raised; people should be kept on their Ls or Ps for longer; the legal driving BAC should be lowered; etc.

But if these incidents are being caused by people disregarding the law, how is changing the law going to help? People will just keep on disregarding the law. Last night a 16 year old girl killed her two passengers when she crashed into a power pole; we don't know if she had her Ls or was completely unlicenced, but either way, she was breaking the law. It wouldn't have mattered if the legal driving age was a year higher; she still would have been driving unlicenced.

We have 16 and 17 year olds becoming involved in drunken fights. It wouldn't matter if the legal drinking age was upped to 21; we'd still have underage kids drinking and fighting.

Changing the law only helps when such incidents are caused when people are still acting within the law. An example was when the driving speed limit around built-up areas was 60km/hr. Driving 60km/hr still resulted in horrific accidents and even deaths when people were behaving perfectly lawfully. That is when changing the law has an effect.

There's no point in changing driving and drinking laws when the tragedies are caused by people disregarding the laws.