I can't recall many alcohol related auto accidents during my teen years; yet there are myriad statistics indicating that it was an even worse problem then. Teen deaths from drunk driving have decreased by more than half since 1982.

I suspect the truth is my invincibility has faded, my caution has increased, and my viewpoint has changed. We perceive life and death differently at various ages. So, I thought I would ask today's teens for their perspective.

I chatted with a group of North Raleigh teens ranging in age from 14 to 19. They have all had alcoholic beverages, despite the fact that the legal drinking age is 21.

None of them report drinking alone or heavily, and some appear to be able to resist peer pressure.

Fourteen year old Elizabeth Cole says, "There is peer pressure about everything, but [drinking] never appealed to me or my friends."

Brian Allard, 18, says, "It is not an integral part of my friends' social gatherings."

Peer pressure's impact is actually a good thing since parents, based on their relationship with their kids, can in some small way influence their child's choice of friends. A parent can certainly have more effect in that regard than they can in protecting their child from omnipresent alcoholic beverage advertisements.

Alcoholic beverage advertisers have committed to self-regulating and to complying with a set of standards such as having no more than 30 percent of the audience for an ad consist of people under 21 and ensuring the content of an ad does not appeal primarily to people under 21.

The Federal Trade Commission reports the industry is compliant, but being compliant with weak standards does little good. All of the teens could recall an alcoholic beverage commercial; however only Brian could recall details of a recent assembly about underage drinking.

So what do they think should be done to shift teen culture to one that willingly does not accept irresponsible drinking?

All the teens agreed there needs to be a continuous message to heighten awareness and education. I would venture to say it should begin in grades before high school since in a federal government survey 63 percent of eighth graders reported that alcohol was "fairly easy" or "very easy" to get.

As a freshman, Elizabeth has not been required to attend all of the seminars that juniors and seniors attend. Meanwhile Brian, a senior, says he is bombarded with assemblies. At that point many kids have already established an attitude and behavior pattern toward drinking.

Statistics don't make much difference to most teens. The connection needs to be personal.

"I saw my brother's pain when his four friends died," Elizabeth says. "I know how drinking and driving can hurt so many people. I wouldn't do it."

Elizabeth's brother, John, knew Steven George, Baker Sterling Wood, Timothy Steinberg, and Anthony Bostic, all of whom died in 2006 in an alcohol-related crash. The four died after the car in which they were travelling flew off a U.S. 64/264 ramp onto the Beltline.

Listening to the teens' ideas about how to change the culture made me recall past efforts: the 1980s public service announcements about having a designated driver, Candy Lightner beginning Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) in 1980, the students in Massachusetts founding SADD (Students Against Driving Drunk, now Students Against Destructive Decisions) in 1981, and Congress passing the National Minimum Drinking Age Act, which established 21 as the federal minimum drinking age, in 1984.

Even with 25 years of public service advertising and community-based efforts as well as efforts from the law-enforcement community, we still struggle with this issue and still have fatal accidents. Maybe the real key is how we get teens to care as much about this issue as adults without stealing their invincibility, their youth -- but before they lose a friend.