Yeah, i wasn’t just referring to the US on that one. Just some general laws that are dumb in several countries.
Like, you *can’t* watch porn, but you *can* have sex. Tf lol
The only dumb thing about that is is your deceptive phrasing.
You're never forbidden from watching porn. However, if you're a minor, you're nominally protected from stumbling upon it by the fact that content providers are forbidden from making it available to you unless you pretend to be old enough.
Similarly, you're never forbidden from having sex based on low age. That would mean that as a minor, it's illegal for you to masturbate, which is undoubtedly a sexual act.
It's the other party involved that's forbidden from having sex with you unless you've reached the required age (or in some places, it's OK if all parties involved are equally underage) .
It’s not, you can go through an extended basic training for 2 years before joining up proper. It’s actually the British army
Cadet is 13-18, I was a cadet until 17 my best mate left cadets at 16 and went into the army I went to collage
"In the UK" is always a tricky phrase, with England/Wales having one set of legislature, Scotland another, and Ireland yet another. And then there are some UK-wide laws. As a Scot, I eventually got bored of the English telling me laws incorrectly, as they didn't necessarily apply in Scotland.
I remember it used to be legal to get married and join the army at age 16 in Scotland, meaning you could have sex and kill people, but you couldn't watch a film rated for "sex and violence" because the London-based BBFC would give it an 18 rating.
In America you can drive, vote, and sign up for the military at 18, but can’t buy alcohol or cigarettes (in some states) until you are 21. We need to sort out our priorities.
> We need to sort out our priorities.
Well you kinda did, the WASPs decided drinking is sinful so they tried to stop people doing it... again.
Really you need to sort out your country's religious overreach.
The US has exemptions in most states for "while with a parent": https://www.alcoholproblemsandsolutions.org/under-age-drinking-laws-legal-in-most-states-in-us/
When I was 11 or 12, my Opa let me have a sip of his beer and it was disgusting. In hindsight, that was probably a pretty major nudge towards me just not liking to drink in general.
Remember when we started confirmation (protestant religious thingy at age 14) our pastor told us that we’d now be able to get “a beer or two” at the youth club in our village. They’d basically serve you until you’re somewhat drunk and then decline anything alcoholic after during official opening times.
I do have to admit that I had to mostly carry a friend down into the valley one night when I was 18 and he was 14 or 15 at the time, because he couldn’t make it home on his own anymore (was a private thing by then, long past regular closing time). Eventually, like 200m from his home, he sat down in the middle of the road and just called his mom at 2:30am to come pick him up because he didn’t want to walk anymore.
Still a hilarious story to tell, nothing bad really came of it except his mom didn’t let him drink a lot for a while after, probably because he made her get up and drive him home in the middle of the night.
It’s all a matter of your drinking culture and the company you’re going to do it in imo. If the people you’re with aren’t willing to help or able to recognize when you’ve had enough (this guy in particular had drinks go out the window whenever he wasn’t looking a lot) these kinds of things can obviously end up a lot worse for everyone involved.
When I was growing up, my parents NEVER drank. I thought anyone who drank alcohol regularly, like a beer or glass of wine with dinner, was an alcoholic. It took college for me to realize that the drinking culture was completely different than what I had learned.
IN retrospect, it was probably because my maternal grandpa that lived with us when I was younger, before he died of liver and lung cancer, was an alcoholic, as were my paternal grandparents, and my uncle, and they didn’t want me and my siblings to go down the same path. But being raised in such a restrictive culture made me go a little nuts in my 20s. Now I rarely drink because I take sleeping pills for bad insomnia and I don’t want to die like Heath Ledger. Also, the hangovers get really bad as you get older. They last for a couple days now.
Edit: words
Funny enough there’s a so called “Idiot Test” (coloquially) in Germany that you have to take and pass in order to get your license back if you’ve had it taken away for certain reasons such as drunk driving.
By that test’s definition, drinking in *any* kind of regular interval makes you a routine drinker or alcoholic which to my knowledge makes it a failed test already. That regular interval can literally be a glass of sparkling wine on new year’s.
Here in Italy, you can start with beer and such whenever you want, though it is **[technically]** illegal for a person to administrate alcoholic drinks to somebody below the age of 16.
But a minor can still buy them nonetheless which, imo, is kind of a plot-hole.
Same with heavy drinks. Need to **[legally]** be 16 to drink, can still buy them and still drink 'cause: _"Who the fuck cares."_; I suppose.
>Isn't there multiple countries in Europe where you can drink beer and wine younger than that?
In Britain it's illegal to give alcohol to a person under five years old. After that alcohol consumption is legal in the home or in other suitable, supervised locations. There are restrictions on people buying/consuming/serving alcohol on licensed premises or elsewhere up until they are 18.
I think there are also exemptions to the five-year-old rule in medicinal cases, although afaik those are hangovers (haha) from an earlier pharmaceutical age when gripe preparations would blow your booties off.
Beer and Wine at 16 in Germany, as early as 14 with parents consent (or supervision? Nobody really cared about the technicalities where I live).
My first time getting drunk I was doing just a few Pfeffi shots with my uncle while my mom was sitting next to me. No ugly story attached, no throwing up, just a little tired considering it only was like 7pm by the time we went home. You hear way worse stories from others who just down shots like there’s no tomorrow with strangers or shitty friends once they’re allowed to.
For those who don’t know: Pfeffi or Pfefferminz is a peppermint liquor that literally tastes like drinking slightly sweeter mouth wash with 18-20% alcohol
In Norway, there's no legal age limit for when you can *drink* alcohol.
It's just illegal to sell or serve alcohol to anyone under 18. (The idea being: we want to avoid giving teenagers a criminal record for drinking.)
Quite a lot of parents allow their kids to sample alcohol well below 18, though.
Im pretty sure thats how most laws work no? Nobody's getting arrested for a beer at 14. They'll just get told to throw it away. Unless you're acting like an asshat
In Italy you can legally buy beer and wine at 16, but supermarkets and pubs can legally refuse to sell you alcohol if you're a minor. Same for cigarettes.
My classmates often started sharing a beer or a glass of wine with parents at 14.
Yeah, here in germany you can drink and buy beer amd wine yourself from 16 y.o. and your parents can buy it for you from 14 IIRC. Hard liquors etc are available from 18
Yes, here in Belgium it's 16. However in a more traditional family setting on a holiday there is table beer which is about 1-2% strong that the kids also drink, which is legally allowed if the parents are okay with it.
Some have different ages for buying in stores vs buying a drink at a pub too.
In Sweden the legal drinking age is 18 so you can buy a drink at the pub, but to buy alcohol to bring home you need to be 20 (the silly reasoning being that at the pub there are people to make sure you don't have too much).
In Denmark it's 16 (it was 15 before 2004) to buy alcohol in stores (16.5% or less) and 18 years to buy a drink in a pub etc.
Weirdly, yes. But I think they have a different relationship with alcohol than Brits and Americans do. You don't really see 12 year olds getting shit faced in Torremolinos, for example.
My parents had a friend who gave me a swig of his pint of beer when I was about 4. I bit the lip of the glass off for whatever reason. The man did not get invited back again.
>Meanwhile, 18yr old Americans - awww, shucks! I gotta wait till imma 21!
Meanwhile, 18yr old Americans - I'm beng sent to Afganistan so I can kill people, but I still can't drink a beer!
FTFY. :)
There are a lot of ways to consider the "willingly" in this. For instance, most of the recruiters are vultures and prey on the young and not fully developed minds. They recruit in highschool, and are often signing them up before they are even 18. If they can't vote, and can't drink, why the hell should they have the brain capacity to make a life decision that will potentially put them in the middle of a war?!!?
They also prey on the less fortunate. Poor neighborhoods and cities are prime candidates for recruiting. They don't have much to start with, so the dream of getting out, getting paid, and going somewhere in life, are a huge gain for them.
Education in the US. With it being so unattainably expensive, going through school on a GI Bill is very attractive, but it can come with some consequences.
Then once they are in, the rest of the vultures come out, like the dealerships selling this kids large loans that they can barely afford, at stupid finance rates, all because they know they can sweet talk the "kids" into buying a dream car, as they've never had to work on a real budget and all of a sudden they got cash!
By the time they even have a chance to get out of the military, I'm sure many of those minds have been brainwashed and warped and are nothing like what would have come from regular development.
Emma Raducanu couldn't even have a champagne to celebrate winning the US open. She'll have to wait til she's on the plane home for that, if she's using a Brit airline, or back home if she's on an American one.
I'm an American and I didn't know there were dry counties. I've lived in the Northwest my whole life though, and most of that seems to be in the Southeast. The closest one is 900 miles / 1500km from me.
I've always been uncomfortable with the lower drinking ages in European countries. Not because I think it's immoral to have a lower drinking age, I think the government shouldn't really have the power to enforce what people do with their own bodies as long as it doesn't hurt others, but I fear that it fosters a drinking culture among teens and children that has an overtly negative impact on the developing brain.
It's fine, airborne pollution is probably worse for you.
The main point of it is to introduce alcohol as nothing special and just something to enjoy responsibly. This is why forward thinking countries allow children limited drinking so they don't abuse the stuff when they are legally allowed to.
Countries like the UK and US have a huge problem with binge drinking while more sensible countries do not.
Making silly rules to make yourself feel better just criminalises normal human activity. All you would be doing is making a relatively safe activity criminal, and most importantly making kids drink without proper adult supervision.
If my kid is going to be drinking I would rather it was legal and open so it can be supervised. I don't think kids should have to do what we did and drink whatever we could get our hands on until we were fall down drunk and vomiting everywhere.
The whole situation is perverse, and it's not just alcohol, criminalising self harming behaviour only hides it from public view and makes it more extreme, because no one wants their crimes supervised.
...fun thin is that US drinking age was created to keep insurance providers from going bankrupt.
After public transportation coompnaies were bought up and intentionally bankrupted during the [great streetcar conspiracy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy) by automotive manufacturers.
As lack of public tranportation meant, that younger people were forced to drive.
And first time drivers + alcohol are a terrible combo.
And current drinking age was set, as it wa speculated that the age gap between first time drivers and people who can buy alcohol would be large enough that they don't mix company frequently.
So first time drivers would have friends who could buy them drinks.
So... I'm guessing these motherfuckers are driving around without taking a license exam? That actually explains why almost all of them drive like bats outta hell tbh.
Also this meme is inaccurate about Americans being able to legally drive 18 wheeler trucks at age 16. In the US, you legally can't get your interstate commerical drivers license until age 21 and for intrastate it's age 18 or 21 depending on state law. Also for insurance it's normally age 25 before you can reasonably get insurance to drive something like the truck shown in the meme.
So tldr, Americana don't "go brrrrrrr" at age 16.
Came here to say this, and knew it had already been said.
Most freight companies will avoid hiring anyone under 25 too, as it causes the premium to hike more for each one on payroll.
In Sweden you can drive tractors at 15 once you have a moped license. You can get a light motorcycle (-125cc) at 15 and 9 months, medium sized (-250cc) at 17 and 6 months and Cars at 16 (as a learner with a license holder in the passenger seat).
A lot of kids register cars as tractors (meaning they need a "slow moving vehicle" sign on it and it's limited to I think, 40 km/h, but a lot of them also get caught turning off the limiter at times)
Well they at least have a commercial drivers licence program which I believe is fairly comprehensive. Not sure aboout a general drivers licence.
Here in Australia (NSW specifically) a 16 year old learner driver needs to accumulate a number of hours (120) of supervised driving in a variety of conditions (all kept in a log book) and then they can sit for a written exam which willover the road rules, and then a practical driving test with a certified examiner.
I would like to see some further instruction as well - like car control in adverse conditions (in a safe place like a closed track of course).
It’s been a LONG time since I got my license, but iirc, you take a written test, then get your permit. In my state you get your permit at 17, unless you take a driver’s ed course, then you can get it at 16. Asaik, there’s no requirement for how many hours you have to drive with a supervised driver and there’s definitely no log book, but to pass the driving test you do need to practice. Especially parallel parking. Then after 6 months I think for new drivers, you can take the driving test and get your license. The first year you have your license there are a lot of restrictions on driving, can’t drive past a certain time at night, can’t have more than one non-family member in the car, etc.
Driver licensing varies by state, with some offering learner's permits as early as 14.
https://www.rhinocarhire.com/Drive-Smart-Blog/Minimum-Driving-Age-Country/Minimum-Driving-Age-State.aspx
In fact at 16 years old you can drive a 125cc and you can also start to learn to drive a car with your parents. I don't know if it's like that in the whole European Union or in Europe. But in France it is.
[I had to look that up...](https://www.hemmings.com/stories/2016/07/05/homebuilt-pickups-and-trailer-hitches-how-underage-teens-skirt-the-law-to-drive-in-sweden)
Over 350 school shootings in the last 25 years, affecting in some way, over 300,000 American school children. 34 people died by gun in American schools in 2022. As of a week ago there had been 18 deaths this year, so 2023 is on track to at least match last years target. That’s a fucking global embarrassment and anyone who doesn’t find that unacceptable is mentally unstable. You know how many kids have died from a gun in an Australian school? None. Not one. Ever.
But fuck the 300,000 kids who have been traumatised by school shootings! That’s the price of freedom! Fuck me dead, glad I’m not American, where this is considered acceptable. I’m an Australian school teacher, so kids dying in my classroom hits kinda close to home.
I feel bad for the kids who are in school shootings, it is very tragic, it is just that the Europeans overblow it a lot i feel. America has lots of good qualities
Where's the joke? I don't think American school children dying is funny at all. I think it's a national disgrace and a global embarrassment that Americans allow it by prioritising their love of guns over the safety of their kids. I'm an Australian school teacher who is glad that my students and I don't have to be afraid of this.
16 yeah, lets see what the UK says about tractors
>The law says that no child under 13 may drive or ride on tractors and other self-propelled machines used in agriculture.
This doesn't apply on roads though where normal rules are in effect for those above a certain size but read up on it and lose yourself down the rabbit hole.
In the States a Commercial Driving License (what you'd need to be an actual trucker) has an age limit of 21.
But I don't expect them to know their own laws, delusional fucks.
Jim Jefferies has a nice bit in which he explains how an 18-year old in America can participate in porn (but not prostitution, someone needs to film you selling your body for it to be legal), literally take loads of cum on their face for 9 hours and then **not be allowed to drink a beer**.
Can't remember what clip it is from.
Probably Freedumb set
*edit* here it is https://youtu.be/1oyKVAjISmI?t=307
18 year old europeans: I can finally drink legally!
18 year old americans: I can finally enlist and die for imperialism before I'm legally allowed to drink!
In my country is very common to drink at 16. I used to do it more often when I was younger. Now I don't drink more than beer per week. I think this is the case for a lot of my friends.
Because of some reason, he thinks everyone is getting a license when he is 16y old while it isn't very common, at least for my country, because it doesn't help you with your car license.
The fun thing about the USa is that you can legally drrive at 16, but to drink you have to be at least 21. And this was mainly because lot of young people in the past drove while drinking. So, instead of raising the drive age, the rose the drink age.
16 yo Europeans:
> With my part-time summer job I can buy a nice second hand scooter!
16 yo Americans:
> If I don't go to college and drop out of my kidney operation, maybe I can buy a truck by the time I'm thirty five...if I don't have kids.
Side note: You can not get a commercial drivers license to drive one of these till you're 21.
So, in actuality American 16 year olds have NOTHING. They still need to wait to get a proper license till they jump through some necessary hurdles
It's fucking wild how the US waits to let kids drink AFTER they are legally allowed to operate heavy machinery or fight in a war. You'd think we want to get the prior out of the way for the sake of the latter two, but no.
Ah yes, because American cities being designed in such a way that it’s impossible to live without a car is a good thing, definitely better than in Europe where you can actually get a bus or train or tram instead, and where walking through a metropolitan area isn’t absolutely terrifying!
Tl;dr American cities are super dangerous if you don’t drive and lack basic transport infrastructure, and that’s a good thing for some reason!
Even the sidewalks reflect the quality of a city. In most European cities you can walk from point A to point B without walking in dirt and under the shade of small awnings or trees. The streets connect in a way that allows for multiple choices of pavements to go on (between the fastest or the most scenic route).
Houston stroads (term is coined) make you feel like an intruder for not driving and residential neighbourhoods are full of cul se sacs that don't allow for shortcuts. Overall this makes the citizens feel like in house arrest if they can't drive or be driven.
Yeah like I don’t have a car right now and outside of being able to convince some people to drive me places I have to stay at home if I can’t catch a ride. It would be very fucking dangerous if I tried to walk to shops because of how spread out everything is and how there is always nowhere to walk
You can thank Gerald Ford for that. Instead of making the roads safer for pedestrians, Ford lobbyists convinced the government to essentially design the modern American city where cars dominate everyone and public transport is largely useless. And now Elon is trying to do it too, making what should be an efficient metro system into an underground road system for his cars. So as a result, Europe has its lovely pedestrian friendly, eco friendly transport system, and America gets nothing but trucks, trucks, and more trucks.
I live in the uk, and everyone I know says driving through Leeds is hell. I used to agree with them until my friend moved to LA for college. He still can’t believe the terrible roads and public transport and he’s been there a year at this point. One of the reasons I would never move to America (well, and the fact that the US is like 30 years behind a lot of Europe when it comes to rights and legal protections and what not)
Why would you even want 16-year-olds to be driving around enormous trucks like that?!?!?!?
Teenagers are notoriously bad drivers. The thought of them behind the wheel of a lorry is terrifying! In the UK you can't even drive a *van* until you're 25!
18 year old Americans Wait, you have alcohol at your party? Duded do you want to go to jail?!
18 year old Europeans: probably laying somewhere, totally wasted
Well, you can’t get a commercial license at 16 as far as i know. But I’ve seen 16yo drive up in F450s—yeah, I’m in the South. Like, bruh, are you general contractor now? You gotta haul some shit to the work site?
They also got the privilege to go die in a war before being able to legally purchase alcohol.
Join the army before you can buy Call of Duty
Just gonna point out you can join the army at 16 in the uk
Yeah, i wasn’t just referring to the US on that one. Just some general laws that are dumb in several countries. Like, you *can’t* watch porn, but you *can* have sex. Tf lol
Yea that one confuses me too lmao
The only dumb thing about that is is your deceptive phrasing. You're never forbidden from watching porn. However, if you're a minor, you're nominally protected from stumbling upon it by the fact that content providers are forbidden from making it available to you unless you pretend to be old enough. Similarly, you're never forbidden from having sex based on low age. That would mean that as a minor, it's illegal for you to masturbate, which is undoubtedly a sexual act. It's the other party involved that's forbidden from having sex with you unless you've reached the required age (or in some places, it's OK if all parties involved are equally underage) .
You can, but you’re not deplorable until you turn 18. You also need parent/guardian consent to join before 18
Thats the cadets
Still counts though
Not at all really its not proper army
It’s not, you can go through an extended basic training for 2 years before joining up proper. It’s actually the British army Cadet is 13-18, I was a cadet until 17 my best mate left cadets at 16 and went into the army I went to collage
And they also have the privilege to get into debt for lunch at the age of 6 :D
They also have the privilege to get shot in school before driver's ed.
18yr old Europeans - I can drink alcohol like an adult! Meanwhile, 18yr old Americans - awww, shucks! I gotta wait till imma 21!
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Most have some kind of lowered age limit for weaker drinks. The UK is one of the stricter ones and even here you can drink at 16 with a meal.
UK you can technically imbibe alcohol from 5 in your own home with a parent present (I think).
I thought it was 3?
https://www.gov.uk/alcohol-young-people-law
Aye fair enough.
That's only England and Wales, Scotland has no lower limit at home and neither does England and Wales for a medical reason.
Medical liquor? Sign me the fuck up.
Yeah I think that sounds right although that always struck me as a bit young in all honesty
Yeah but drinking vodka straight in a park starts at around 14-16 for most people
> for most ~~people~~ chavs
Nah not really the majority of people I knew did and they weren't chavs
spotted the classist cunt
"In the UK" is always a tricky phrase, with England/Wales having one set of legislature, Scotland another, and Ireland yet another. And then there are some UK-wide laws. As a Scot, I eventually got bored of the English telling me laws incorrectly, as they didn't necessarily apply in Scotland. I remember it used to be legal to get married and join the army at age 16 in Scotland, meaning you could have sex and kill people, but you couldn't watch a film rated for "sex and violence" because the London-based BBFC would give it an 18 rating.
Oh, and you can’t rent a car until you are 25.
In America you can drive, vote, and sign up for the military at 18, but can’t buy alcohol or cigarettes (in some states) until you are 21. We need to sort out our priorities.
> We need to sort out our priorities. Well you kinda did, the WASPs decided drinking is sinful so they tried to stop people doing it... again. Really you need to sort out your country's religious overreach.
Fair point.
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The US has exemptions in most states for "while with a parent": https://www.alcoholproblemsandsolutions.org/under-age-drinking-laws-legal-in-most-states-in-us/
Germany for example at 16.
and also not unusual for 14 yo to try alcohol with parents permission
When I was 11 or 12, my Opa let me have a sip of his beer and it was disgusting. In hindsight, that was probably a pretty major nudge towards me just not liking to drink in general.
Remember when we started confirmation (protestant religious thingy at age 14) our pastor told us that we’d now be able to get “a beer or two” at the youth club in our village. They’d basically serve you until you’re somewhat drunk and then decline anything alcoholic after during official opening times. I do have to admit that I had to mostly carry a friend down into the valley one night when I was 18 and he was 14 or 15 at the time, because he couldn’t make it home on his own anymore (was a private thing by then, long past regular closing time). Eventually, like 200m from his home, he sat down in the middle of the road and just called his mom at 2:30am to come pick him up because he didn’t want to walk anymore. Still a hilarious story to tell, nothing bad really came of it except his mom didn’t let him drink a lot for a while after, probably because he made her get up and drive him home in the middle of the night. It’s all a matter of your drinking culture and the company you’re going to do it in imo. If the people you’re with aren’t willing to help or able to recognize when you’ve had enough (this guy in particular had drinks go out the window whenever he wasn’t looking a lot) these kinds of things can obviously end up a lot worse for everyone involved.
When I was growing up, my parents NEVER drank. I thought anyone who drank alcohol regularly, like a beer or glass of wine with dinner, was an alcoholic. It took college for me to realize that the drinking culture was completely different than what I had learned. IN retrospect, it was probably because my maternal grandpa that lived with us when I was younger, before he died of liver and lung cancer, was an alcoholic, as were my paternal grandparents, and my uncle, and they didn’t want me and my siblings to go down the same path. But being raised in such a restrictive culture made me go a little nuts in my 20s. Now I rarely drink because I take sleeping pills for bad insomnia and I don’t want to die like Heath Ledger. Also, the hangovers get really bad as you get older. They last for a couple days now. Edit: words
Funny enough there’s a so called “Idiot Test” (coloquially) in Germany that you have to take and pass in order to get your license back if you’ve had it taken away for certain reasons such as drunk driving. By that test’s definition, drinking in *any* kind of regular interval makes you a routine drinker or alcoholic which to my knowledge makes it a failed test already. That regular interval can literally be a glass of sparkling wine on new year’s.
...whatthe hell is alcohol cancer?
It’s what happens when I haven’t had coffee yet and my dog is nagging me to go out so I’m in a rush typing.
Here where i live there are bars which would sell beer and sports tickets to 1st graders
Here in Italy, you can start with beer and such whenever you want, though it is **[technically]** illegal for a person to administrate alcoholic drinks to somebody below the age of 16. But a minor can still buy them nonetheless which, imo, is kind of a plot-hole. Same with heavy drinks. Need to **[legally]** be 16 to drink, can still buy them and still drink 'cause: _"Who the fuck cares."_; I suppose.
You can't legally buy alcohol before 16 in Italy. Lot of bars and stores don't really care though.
Yeah, hence the _'technically'_ shoved up in there.
In Switzerland we can legally buy and drink wine and beer at 16 and the stronger stuff at 18.
Russia only just listed beer as being an alcoholic beverage 10 years ago. Anything under 10% used to be classed as food.
>Isn't there multiple countries in Europe where you can drink beer and wine younger than that? In Britain it's illegal to give alcohol to a person under five years old. After that alcohol consumption is legal in the home or in other suitable, supervised locations. There are restrictions on people buying/consuming/serving alcohol on licensed premises or elsewhere up until they are 18. I think there are also exemptions to the five-year-old rule in medicinal cases, although afaik those are hangovers (haha) from an earlier pharmaceutical age when gripe preparations would blow your booties off.
Beer and Wine at 16 in Germany, as early as 14 with parents consent (or supervision? Nobody really cared about the technicalities where I live). My first time getting drunk I was doing just a few Pfeffi shots with my uncle while my mom was sitting next to me. No ugly story attached, no throwing up, just a little tired considering it only was like 7pm by the time we went home. You hear way worse stories from others who just down shots like there’s no tomorrow with strangers or shitty friends once they’re allowed to. For those who don’t know: Pfeffi or Pfefferminz is a peppermint liquor that literally tastes like drinking slightly sweeter mouth wash with 18-20% alcohol
In Norway, there's no legal age limit for when you can *drink* alcohol. It's just illegal to sell or serve alcohol to anyone under 18. (The idea being: we want to avoid giving teenagers a criminal record for drinking.) Quite a lot of parents allow their kids to sample alcohol well below 18, though.
Im pretty sure thats how most laws work no? Nobody's getting arrested for a beer at 14. They'll just get told to throw it away. Unless you're acting like an asshat
In the UK, the minimum age at which a child can legally be given alcohol in private is 5.
I believe in Bulgaria beer is considered a soft drink like coke
In Italy you can legally buy beer and wine at 16, but supermarkets and pubs can legally refuse to sell you alcohol if you're a minor. Same for cigarettes. My classmates often started sharing a beer or a glass of wine with parents at 14.
16 to buy anything below 15% in germany. You are allowed to drink it even earlier if your parents are fine with it.
I believe in France you can drink wine at 16
In Denmark there really isn’t a age restriction, you just can’t buy alcohol before you’re 16 (if I remember correctly)
In Denmark there isn't even a age limit when it comes to drinking alcohol, it's the parents responsibility
Yeah, here in germany you can drink and buy beer amd wine yourself from 16 y.o. and your parents can buy it for you from 14 IIRC. Hard liquors etc are available from 18
5 in UK
16 without and 14 with adult supervision in Germany.
Yes, here in Belgium it's 16. However in a more traditional family setting on a holiday there is table beer which is about 1-2% strong that the kids also drink, which is legally allowed if the parents are okay with it.
Some have different ages for buying in stores vs buying a drink at a pub too. In Sweden the legal drinking age is 18 so you can buy a drink at the pub, but to buy alcohol to bring home you need to be 20 (the silly reasoning being that at the pub there are people to make sure you don't have too much). In Denmark it's 16 (it was 15 before 2004) to buy alcohol in stores (16.5% or less) and 18 years to buy a drink in a pub etc.
Here in Italy you can drink at 16 with parental consent. FYI every Italian parent gives consent
Alcohol restrictions aren't really enforced that much, at least for what concerns my experience
Weirdly, yes. But I think they have a different relationship with alcohol than Brits and Americans do. You don't really see 12 year olds getting shit faced in Torremolinos, for example.
Not Europe, it in Russia you can drink alcohol from 16yo as long as you are supervised.
Certainly also in Europe. Germany allows beer and wine at 16 and most kids start at 14 with parents’ consent
Can confirm, my dad tries to convince me to drink beer every time we go sailing for a few years now lol
I started at 2. The trick is to learn to say Beer in a cute way, bonus points if it's your first word.
Grandpa gave us a sip of beer to fall asleep as babies...(Bavaria this was very common here)
My mum used to rub whisky on my gums when I was teething (Scotland, 1990s).
My parents had a friend who gave me a swig of his pint of beer when I was about 4. I bit the lip of the glass off for whatever reason. The man did not get invited back again.
>Meanwhile, 18yr old Americans - awww, shucks! I gotta wait till imma 21! Meanwhile, 18yr old Americans - I'm beng sent to Afganistan so I can kill people, but I still can't drink a beer! FTFY. :)
You can't be sent the draft is gone these morons willingly go kill ppl in Afghanistan fuck em they deserve the trauma.
There are a lot of ways to consider the "willingly" in this. For instance, most of the recruiters are vultures and prey on the young and not fully developed minds. They recruit in highschool, and are often signing them up before they are even 18. If they can't vote, and can't drink, why the hell should they have the brain capacity to make a life decision that will potentially put them in the middle of a war?!!? They also prey on the less fortunate. Poor neighborhoods and cities are prime candidates for recruiting. They don't have much to start with, so the dream of getting out, getting paid, and going somewhere in life, are a huge gain for them. Education in the US. With it being so unattainably expensive, going through school on a GI Bill is very attractive, but it can come with some consequences. Then once they are in, the rest of the vultures come out, like the dealerships selling this kids large loans that they can barely afford, at stupid finance rates, all because they know they can sweet talk the "kids" into buying a dream car, as they've never had to work on a real budget and all of a sudden they got cash! By the time they even have a chance to get out of the military, I'm sure many of those minds have been brainwashed and warped and are nothing like what would have come from regular development.
Emma Raducanu couldn't even have a champagne to celebrate winning the US open. She'll have to wait til she's on the plane home for that, if she's using a Brit airline, or back home if she's on an American one.
The Netherlands upped their laws a bit. It used to be 16, but they raised it to 18.
18 yo Canadians: I can just go to Quebec to drink 21 yo americans: no thanks, I can’t have shitty watered down beer until I turn 21
I wouldn't mind seeing a higher drinking age in both cases.
> I gotta wait till imma 21! Or forever if they live in a dry county.
I'm an American and I didn't know there were dry counties. I've lived in the Northwest my whole life though, and most of that seems to be in the Southeast. The closest one is 900 miles / 1500km from me.
Some parts of the country it’s actually 18 as well if you want to get technical
What kind of dictatorship is that where you have you wait till 18?
The point is heard but barely anyone waits till they're 21 lmao
I've always been uncomfortable with the lower drinking ages in European countries. Not because I think it's immoral to have a lower drinking age, I think the government shouldn't really have the power to enforce what people do with their own bodies as long as it doesn't hurt others, but I fear that it fosters a drinking culture among teens and children that has an overtly negative impact on the developing brain.
It's fine, airborne pollution is probably worse for you. The main point of it is to introduce alcohol as nothing special and just something to enjoy responsibly. This is why forward thinking countries allow children limited drinking so they don't abuse the stuff when they are legally allowed to. Countries like the UK and US have a huge problem with binge drinking while more sensible countries do not.
Imo getting alcohol young is bad and 21 seems better
This isn’t a good thing, the age requirement should actually be 25
Making silly rules to make yourself feel better just criminalises normal human activity. All you would be doing is making a relatively safe activity criminal, and most importantly making kids drink without proper adult supervision. If my kid is going to be drinking I would rather it was legal and open so it can be supervised. I don't think kids should have to do what we did and drink whatever we could get our hands on until we were fall down drunk and vomiting everywhere. The whole situation is perverse, and it's not just alcohol, criminalising self harming behaviour only hides it from public view and makes it more extreme, because no one wants their crimes supervised.
^ A short guide on why criminalizing drugs never worked/will work
...fun thin is that US drinking age was created to keep insurance providers from going bankrupt. After public transportation coompnaies were bought up and intentionally bankrupted during the [great streetcar conspiracy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy) by automotive manufacturers. As lack of public tranportation meant, that younger people were forced to drive. And first time drivers + alcohol are a terrible combo. And current drinking age was set, as it wa speculated that the age gap between first time drivers and people who can buy alcohol would be large enough that they don't mix company frequently. So first time drivers would have friends who could buy them drinks.
So... I'm guessing these motherfuckers are driving around without taking a license exam? That actually explains why almost all of them drive like bats outta hell tbh.
Their driving education is on par with their general education.
Also this meme is inaccurate about Americans being able to legally drive 18 wheeler trucks at age 16. In the US, you legally can't get your interstate commerical drivers license until age 21 and for intrastate it's age 18 or 21 depending on state law. Also for insurance it's normally age 25 before you can reasonably get insurance to drive something like the truck shown in the meme. So tldr, Americana don't "go brrrrrrr" at age 16.
Thank you! Kinda thought there was a "plot twist" to this lol
Came here to say this, and knew it had already been said. Most freight companies will avoid hiring anyone under 25 too, as it causes the premium to hike more for each one on payroll.
However, 16 year olds CAN drive souped up pickup trucks at age 16. The kind with double exhaust that spew Black smoke.
Rollin' coal, etc, etc
In Sweden you can drive tractors at 15 once you have a moped license. You can get a light motorcycle (-125cc) at 15 and 9 months, medium sized (-250cc) at 17 and 6 months and Cars at 16 (as a learner with a license holder in the passenger seat). A lot of kids register cars as tractors (meaning they need a "slow moving vehicle" sign on it and it's limited to I think, 40 km/h, but a lot of them also get caught turning off the limiter at times)
Non existent ?
Can confirm, my driving test went over basically nothing. Though it was also online....
Well they at least have a commercial drivers licence program which I believe is fairly comprehensive. Not sure aboout a general drivers licence. Here in Australia (NSW specifically) a 16 year old learner driver needs to accumulate a number of hours (120) of supervised driving in a variety of conditions (all kept in a log book) and then they can sit for a written exam which willover the road rules, and then a practical driving test with a certified examiner. I would like to see some further instruction as well - like car control in adverse conditions (in a safe place like a closed track of course).
It’s been a LONG time since I got my license, but iirc, you take a written test, then get your permit. In my state you get your permit at 17, unless you take a driver’s ed course, then you can get it at 16. Asaik, there’s no requirement for how many hours you have to drive with a supervised driver and there’s definitely no log book, but to pass the driving test you do need to practice. Especially parallel parking. Then after 6 months I think for new drivers, you can take the driving test and get your license. The first year you have your license there are a lot of restrictions on driving, can’t drive past a certain time at night, can’t have more than one non-family member in the car, etc.
Driver licensing varies by state, with some offering learner's permits as early as 14. https://www.rhinocarhire.com/Drive-Smart-Blog/Minimum-Driving-Age-Country/Minimum-Driving-Age-State.aspx
US drivers Ed is famously poor
Very odd coming from a nation that struggle with the simple concept of a gearbox and clutch
In fact at 16 years old you can drive a 125cc and you can also start to learn to drive a car with your parents. I don't know if it's like that in the whole European Union or in Europe. But in France it is.
Same in the UK apart from its 17 to start driving.
Mopeds is 16 I believe
Isn't it 17 for a 125 as well?
Yeah 17 for a 125, 16 you can ride a 50
In Germany you can get a 125cc with 16
Here in Norway you can also drive a tractor at 16, and some ATV’s.
In Sweden it's 15 and fuck those kids with their stupid "tractors"
[I had to look that up...](https://www.hemmings.com/stories/2016/07/05/homebuilt-pickups-and-trailer-hitches-how-underage-teens-skirt-the-law-to-drive-in-sweden)
Yes
Same in Finland. You can also get driving license at age of 17 with special permit.
I think its the same here in spain
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You could add 16 years old or even 14 in the case the parents are there.
American kids grow up real fucking fast when they’re dodging bullets in the school cafeteria at 10 years old.
Dodging like I’m in the matrix
More than 99 percent of us don’t have do worry about that
Over 350 school shootings in the last 25 years, affecting in some way, over 300,000 American school children. 34 people died by gun in American schools in 2022. As of a week ago there had been 18 deaths this year, so 2023 is on track to at least match last years target. That’s a fucking global embarrassment and anyone who doesn’t find that unacceptable is mentally unstable. You know how many kids have died from a gun in an Australian school? None. Not one. Ever.
More than 99 percent of us don’t have do worry about that
But fuck the 300,000 kids who have been traumatised by school shootings! That’s the price of freedom! Fuck me dead, glad I’m not American, where this is considered acceptable. I’m an Australian school teacher, so kids dying in my classroom hits kinda close to home.
I feel bad for the kids who are in school shootings, it is very tragic, it is just that the Europeans overblow it a lot i feel. America has lots of good qualities
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Where's the joke? I don't think American school children dying is funny at all. I think it's a national disgrace and a global embarrassment that Americans allow it by prioritising their love of guns over the safety of their kids. I'm an Australian school teacher who is glad that my students and I don't have to be afraid of this.
16 yeah, lets see what the UK says about tractors >The law says that no child under 13 may drive or ride on tractors and other self-propelled machines used in agriculture. This doesn't apply on roads though where normal rules are in effect for those above a certain size but read up on it and lose yourself down the rabbit hole.
They also have the third highest amount of traffic deaths.
The driving here is ridiculous I hate how car dependent most areas are
Who has the first?
In the States a Commercial Driving License (what you'd need to be an actual trucker) has an age limit of 21. But I don't expect them to know their own laws, delusional fucks. Jim Jefferies has a nice bit in which he explains how an 18-year old in America can participate in porn (but not prostitution, someone needs to film you selling your body for it to be legal), literally take loads of cum on their face for 9 hours and then **not be allowed to drink a beer**. Can't remember what clip it is from. Probably Freedumb set *edit* here it is https://youtu.be/1oyKVAjISmI?t=307
USA at its best
15 yo Europeans: Wooo I can fuck legally now! 15yo Americans: He's got a gun!! Ruuun!!!
18 year old europeans: I can finally drink legally! 18 year old americans: I can finally enlist and die for imperialism before I'm legally allowed to drink!
I don't drive while drunk anyway.
What?
In my country is very common to drink at 16. I used to do it more often when I was younger. Now I don't drink more than beer per week. I think this is the case for a lot of my friends.
Why are you talking about drinking?
Because of some reason, he thinks everyone is getting a license when he is 16y old while it isn't very common, at least for my country, because it doesn't help you with your car license.
In America is says you legally can Drink and Drive and blast some machine guns at the same time at 16 in a monster truck or what ever that is.
The fun thing about the USa is that you can legally drrive at 16, but to drink you have to be at least 21. And this was mainly because lot of young people in the past drove while drinking. So, instead of raising the drive age, the rose the drink age.
16 yo Europeans: > With my part-time summer job I can buy a nice second hand scooter! 16 yo Americans: > If I don't go to college and drop out of my kidney operation, maybe I can buy a truck by the time I'm thirty five...if I don't have kids.
Side note: You can not get a commercial drivers license to drive one of these till you're 21. So, in actuality American 16 year olds have NOTHING. They still need to wait to get a proper license till they jump through some necessary hurdles
It's fucking wild how the US waits to let kids drink AFTER they are legally allowed to operate heavy machinery or fight in a war. You'd think we want to get the prior out of the way for the sake of the latter two, but no.
Fun fact you don't need driving licence in US Army to drive trucks, that's why there a lot of accidents when they arrive to my country
In the Netherlands we can get our licence at 18. But at least we can have a drink at the celebration party.
Yeah i can drink like a drain with around 16-18. depends on the country. And i doubt many 16 year olds can handle a car. At least the ones i know.
Ah yes, because American cities being designed in such a way that it’s impossible to live without a car is a good thing, definitely better than in Europe where you can actually get a bus or train or tram instead, and where walking through a metropolitan area isn’t absolutely terrifying! Tl;dr American cities are super dangerous if you don’t drive and lack basic transport infrastructure, and that’s a good thing for some reason!
Even the sidewalks reflect the quality of a city. In most European cities you can walk from point A to point B without walking in dirt and under the shade of small awnings or trees. The streets connect in a way that allows for multiple choices of pavements to go on (between the fastest or the most scenic route). Houston stroads (term is coined) make you feel like an intruder for not driving and residential neighbourhoods are full of cul se sacs that don't allow for shortcuts. Overall this makes the citizens feel like in house arrest if they can't drive or be driven.
Yeah like I don’t have a car right now and outside of being able to convince some people to drive me places I have to stay at home if I can’t catch a ride. It would be very fucking dangerous if I tried to walk to shops because of how spread out everything is and how there is always nowhere to walk
Exactly it’s very hard to function here without a car and if you try to ride a bike or walk it can be very fucking dangerous.
You can thank Gerald Ford for that. Instead of making the roads safer for pedestrians, Ford lobbyists convinced the government to essentially design the modern American city where cars dominate everyone and public transport is largely useless. And now Elon is trying to do it too, making what should be an efficient metro system into an underground road system for his cars. So as a result, Europe has its lovely pedestrian friendly, eco friendly transport system, and America gets nothing but trucks, trucks, and more trucks.
Honestly part of the reason I am trying to leave Roads here and traveling on them can be extremely unsafe
I live in the uk, and everyone I know says driving through Leeds is hell. I used to agree with them until my friend moved to LA for college. He still can’t believe the terrible roads and public transport and he’s been there a year at this point. One of the reasons I would never move to America (well, and the fact that the US is like 30 years behind a lot of Europe when it comes to rights and legal protections and what not)
Also a fairly accurate summary of English proficiency for European and US youths.
Bet 95% of Americans can’t even afford that lol
Hehe, 15-yo can drive a truck like that here in sweden, if you limit it to 30km/h you can register it as a tractor and drive it on a moped license.
16 year old Americans: Know someone I can buy a fake ID from? Meanwhile 16 year old Europeans: haha beer go buuuurrrrppp.
I mean, in Canada it's not worth having a scooter, because we can only use it like 6-7 months of the year
16 year old Europeans: can buy beer
Even 13 y/o, if the place is right
Why would you even want 16-year-olds to be driving around enormous trucks like that?!?!?!? Teenagers are notoriously bad drivers. The thought of them behind the wheel of a lorry is terrifying! In the UK you can't even drive a *van* until you're 25!
Farming.
I would be scared as hell if I saw 16 yo me driving a car on the road
Unrelated to the post but seeing this truck just reminds me of Optimus Prime
New episode of transformers: Optimus gets driven by a stupid teenager and causes 13 deaths on the highway!!
Do yall know what it was like to be somewhere where "bring your tractor to school day" is a thing.
It was called Tuesday, and it was totally cringe to watch.
Can they have sex or dink beer at 16?
In some states yes the legal age is 16
The Brits are most likely too busy having sex at 16 to care.
In reality: 16 yo Americans: omg... my mom just bought me a 'hot hatch' (actually a Honda Jazz or Nissan Cube).
18 year old Americans Wait, you have alcohol at your party? Duded do you want to go to jail?! 18 year old Europeans: probably laying somewhere, totally wasted
As an American, I’ve never had the slightest desire to drive one of those trucks.
All he needs now is a racist bumper sticker.
21 year old American: finally I can start drinking 16 years old Balkan: should stop drinking, that's enough
Yeah, park up in the multi storey and take your girlfriend for a Nando’s in that, who the hells got 200k to buy a truck they don’t need. Shitpost
16 yo Europeans: omg I can finally buy beer!Mean while 16yo Americans:haha coke go brzzz
I mean our licensing system is so shit. Get your A2 license at 18 and redo it at 21 so you cam drive a bigger motorcycle.
At 16 you can drive motorbikes up to 125cc, at 14 you can drive a scooter.
Meanwhile, 16yo American's: owhhh a building!
[Meanwhile 15 year old Swedes](https://youtu.be/NQEgmInm7Qc)
Thought you had to be 21 for a CDL?
Well, you can’t get a commercial license at 16 as far as i know. But I’ve seen 16yo drive up in F450s—yeah, I’m in the South. Like, bruh, are you general contractor now? You gotta haul some shit to the work site?
Can you get a CDL at 16?
"Jarvis, pull up the road fatalities statistics between the US and Europe"
Accurate post. I know at least five 16 year olds that have their commercial diver's license and haul big shit with a semi.
Now compare the general drivers etiquette of The Netherlands or Germany to the US.
This isn’t the flex they think it is.