Drunken driving sometimes called American's socially accepted form of murder has become a national epidemic（流行病）．Every hour of every day about three Americans on average are killed by drunken drivers, adding up to an incredible 250,000 over the past ten years．A drunken driver is usually referred to as one with 0．10-blood alcohol content or roughly three beers, glasses of wines or shots of whisky drunk within two hours．Heavy drinking used to be an acceptable part of the American manly image and judges were lenient in most courts, but the drunken killing has recently caused so many well-publicized tragedies, especially concerning young children, that public opinion is no longer tolerant．
Twenty states have raised the legal drinking age to 21, reversing a trend （逆转潮流） in the 1960s to reduce it to 18．After New Jersey lowered it to 18, the number of people killed by 18-20-year-old drivers more than doubled, so the state recently upped it back to 21．
Reformers, however, fear raising the drinking age will have little effect unless accompanied by educational programs to help young people to develop "responsible attitudes" about drinking and teach them to resist peer pressure to drink．
Some states are punishing bars for serving customers too many drinks．A bar in Massachusetts was fined for serving six or more double brandies to a customer who was "obviously drunk" and later drove off the land, killing a nine-year-old boy．
As the accidents continue to occur daily in every state, some Americans are even beginning to speak well of the 13 years national prohibition （禁令） of alcohol that began in 1919, which President Hoover called the "noble experiment"．They forget that legal prohibition didn't stop drinking, but encouraged political corruption （腐败） and organized crime．As with the booming drug trade generally, there is no easy solution．
小题1:It can be inferred from the passage that drunken driving has become a major problem in the United States because___．
A．most Americans like drinking
B．heavy dinking is hard to avoid
C．Americans are not shocked by traffic accidents
D．many Americans are killed by traffic accidents小题2:Wha
t can be inferred from the fact of the traffic accidents in New Jersey?
A．Drivers should not be allowed to drink．
B．Young drivers were usually bad．
C．The legal drinking age should be raised．
D．Some drivers didn't reach the legal drinking age．小题3:The underlined word "lenient" in the first paragraph means___．
A．cruel
B．serious
C．determined
D．merciful§小题4:Which of the following best shows the writer's opinion of drunken driving?
A．It may cause organized crime．
B．The new laws can stop heavy drinking．
C．There should be no bars to serve drinks．
D．It is difficult to solve the problem．
