Let us not jump to conclusions here about youth today, yesterday or tomorrow. The situation with youth might be bad but cannot be guaged using the rising number of youth-involved accidents as a barometer.
Drinking and driving has always been a problem and will always be a problem because parents do not do their duty of bringing up their children properly. But that is not the main problem here.
The main problem is that we are adding more and more vehicles and pedestrian / homeless population into our urban streets without expanding the existing infrastructure. So naturally, there is now more propensity for accidents to happen.
The same sodden brattish youths would have gotten away with it a few years ago (probably their lousy parents did get away with it) when there were fewer cars and fewer people out on the roads, but today, with the same dimensions of roads but manifold increase in vehicle and human population, there is more chance for accidents to happen.
So as I see it, by simple rules of probability, coupled with overactive media ravenous for sensational stories to publish, we are bound to be reading more and more of such data.
Solution ? Parents need to bring up their children properly.