Obviously, please do NOT drink and drive
August 28, 2024 7:33 AM Subscribe
It's Time to Talk About the .08 Drunk Driving Limit in the US (slPasteMagazine)
Canada also has a nationwide limit of .08 as well as the UK. (We should rethink it here in Canada, too.)
BAC levels in Western Europe
If any other MeFite outside of these areas have insight to their BAC limits, holla!
Canada also has a nationwide limit of .08 as well as the UK. (We should rethink it here in Canada, too.)
BAC levels in Western Europe
If any other MeFite outside of these areas have insight to their BAC limits, holla!
I find it odd that Vorel talks about industry groups as opposition when it seems clear to me that (in the US) the obvious constituency is people who like to drink and drive. People feel entitled to it, especially because the penalties are so weak and our alternatives are so pitiful.
posted by McBearclaw at 7:59 AM on August 28 [6 favorites]
posted by McBearclaw at 7:59 AM on August 28 [6 favorites]
I have made many a horrified face at how toothless DWI sentences are here in Canada, even when they involve the death of children.
I might as well get this out of the way here: I was arrested for a DWI/DUI when I was 23 years old. I was in a new city, didn't know many people, so my parents had to drive TWO hours from my hometown to bail me out. I have never felt so ashamed. But what was really shitty is that it didn't stop me from getting behind the wheel tipsy. I will never stop feeling shame at how dumb and selfish I was.
I've been sober from alcohol five years and six months now and wish I had been smarter about my choices when I was young.
posted by Kitteh at 8:04 AM on August 28 [72 favorites]
I might as well get this out of the way here: I was arrested for a DWI/DUI when I was 23 years old. I was in a new city, didn't know many people, so my parents had to drive TWO hours from my hometown to bail me out. I have never felt so ashamed. But what was really shitty is that it didn't stop me from getting behind the wheel tipsy. I will never stop feeling shame at how dumb and selfish I was.
I've been sober from alcohol five years and six months now and wish I had been smarter about my choices when I was young.
posted by Kitteh at 8:04 AM on August 28 [72 favorites]
I am 52. I remember (in high school, in Minnesota?) being lectured on the dangers of drunk driving, and then handed a card with a grid indicating estimated BAC, with "weight" and "drinks" on the two axes. Using the card, we could estimate how high our BAC might be, and thus know how long to wait around until we sobered up enough to be under the limit and "safe to drive."
Similar charts are easily found in a Google search.
The approach is pragmatic, I suppose, but is it better than zero-DUI-tolerance, "abstinence education for booze"? I certainly carried the card for a time -- mostly as a curiosity.
To be completely safe, when people live in the suburbs, either they cannot drink alcohol when away from home (e.g., going out to eat) or cannot drive home afterwards. I think of the country bars in rural Wisconsin, and shudder at how many people are heading home each night in big pickup trucks, three sheets to the wind. Drinkers Gonna Drink, yes, but people have to go home eventually at Bar Time.
posted by wenestvedt at 8:09 AM on August 28 [17 favorites]
Similar charts are easily found in a Google search.
The approach is pragmatic, I suppose, but is it better than zero-DUI-tolerance, "abstinence education for booze"? I certainly carried the card for a time -- mostly as a curiosity.
To be completely safe, when people live in the suburbs, either they cannot drink alcohol when away from home (e.g., going out to eat) or cannot drive home afterwards. I think of the country bars in rural Wisconsin, and shudder at how many people are heading home each night in big pickup trucks, three sheets to the wind. Drinkers Gonna Drink, yes, but people have to go home eventually at Bar Time.
posted by wenestvedt at 8:09 AM on August 28 [17 favorites]
people who like to drink and drive
Yeah, my depressing sense in places I have spent a lot of time (mid-Atlantic US, Ottawa) is that there's a non-trivial subset of people that drink and drive all the time, and just keep successfully rolling the dice (esp. since 2020, enforcement is much reduced). I'm not sure what the solution is, lowering BAC seems important but it's hard for me to imagine it's a complete solution to such people. I wonder what the exact causal mechanism was in Utah's 2018 change that was so impactful?
posted by advil at 8:11 AM on August 28 [4 favorites]
Yeah, my depressing sense in places I have spent a lot of time (mid-Atlantic US, Ottawa) is that there's a non-trivial subset of people that drink and drive all the time, and just keep successfully rolling the dice (esp. since 2020, enforcement is much reduced). I'm not sure what the solution is, lowering BAC seems important but it's hard for me to imagine it's a complete solution to such people. I wonder what the exact causal mechanism was in Utah's 2018 change that was so impactful?
posted by advil at 8:11 AM on August 28 [4 favorites]
Alcoholism is baked into society. No one's interested in addressing that particular problem, so we come up with half-measures like "you can have this much booze before piloting several tonnes of steel at lethal speeds."
If I have a drink, the car stays where it is until the next day. If you can't afford a cab or alternate arrangements, then seek counseling for your addiction.
posted by Dark Messiah at 8:13 AM on August 28 [15 favorites]
If I have a drink, the car stays where it is until the next day. If you can't afford a cab or alternate arrangements, then seek counseling for your addiction.
posted by Dark Messiah at 8:13 AM on August 28 [15 favorites]
As the ad campaign put it, if you drink and drive, you’re a bloody idiot.
Australia is 0.05 BAC everywhere, and generally zero BAC for learner and provisional licenses. Australia also has Random Breath Testing to enforce it.
posted by zamboni at 8:13 AM on August 28 [14 favorites]
Australia is 0.05 BAC everywhere, and generally zero BAC for learner and provisional licenses. Australia also has Random Breath Testing to enforce it.
posted by zamboni at 8:13 AM on August 28 [14 favorites]
This paragraph caught my attention as I tried to imagine what was causing an overall decrease in fatal crashes rather than just alcohol-involved ones -- was it that alcohol involved ones were such a huge % that this was the overall effect? Was not having drunk drivers on the road resulting in fewer dangerous situations that caused accidents that the drunk drivers themselves might or might not have been involved in?
In 2018, the state of Utah became the first in the United States to pass a bill lowering its BAC limit for drunk driving to .05. The results have been pretty undeniable–in the following year, fatal crashes dropped by a total of 19.8%. Note, that isn’t even “fatal drunk driving crashes” specifically, but all fatal automobile crashes in the state, in the course of a single year.
I clicked through to the NHTSA press release and it didn't really explain, but I also found this interesting info:
Utah’s drop in crash and fatality rates was a significant improvement over the rest of the United States during the post-implementation year studied, which had a 5.6% fatal crash rate reduction and a 5.9% fatality rate reduction in 2019.
5.6% reduction in fatal crashes in a year seems like a tremendous improvement all on its own, though obviously nowhere near as good as nearly 20%. Any ideas what caused it? Is that improved crash safety? Better public transit or access to Uber?
posted by jacquilynne at 8:18 AM on August 28 [3 favorites]
In 2018, the state of Utah became the first in the United States to pass a bill lowering its BAC limit for drunk driving to .05. The results have been pretty undeniable–in the following year, fatal crashes dropped by a total of 19.8%. Note, that isn’t even “fatal drunk driving crashes” specifically, but all fatal automobile crashes in the state, in the course of a single year.
I clicked through to the NHTSA press release and it didn't really explain, but I also found this interesting info:
Utah’s drop in crash and fatality rates was a significant improvement over the rest of the United States during the post-implementation year studied, which had a 5.6% fatal crash rate reduction and a 5.9% fatality rate reduction in 2019.
5.6% reduction in fatal crashes in a year seems like a tremendous improvement all on its own, though obviously nowhere near as good as nearly 20%. Any ideas what caused it? Is that improved crash safety? Better public transit or access to Uber?
posted by jacquilynne at 8:18 AM on August 28 [3 favorites]
Motorcycle instructor here - we teach a theory section and cover alcohol stats and emphasize a strict zero-tolerance policy. The stats (eg. Ontario Road Safety reports) are scary. From an Australian report - at 0.03 a motorcyclist is 3X more likely to be a fatal crash than a car driver; at 0.08 it's 20X. Don't drink and ride.
posted by whatevernot at 8:18 AM on August 28 [16 favorites]
posted by whatevernot at 8:18 AM on August 28 [16 favorites]
I respectfully submit that the much lower death rate from drunk-driving accidents over the last couple of decades has at least as much to do with the rise of Uber/Lyft as it does with lower BAC limits. I'm 57, and when I was young and used to drink (I stopped just after the turn of the century) there was simply no alternative to driving home. I mean yes, at a house party you could stay overnight if you really needed to, and there were a number of times where I ended up crawling into the back seat of the car and sleeping for a couple of hours, but practically speaking, you had to drive home. There's a huuuge difference between "two drinks over the limit" and "wasted" but there also wasn't a meaningful alternative to "picking the least wasted person and having them drive very carefully" in a lot of cases. I'm not trying to argue that this was a good thing, but there was some attempt at harm reduction. It was well-established that the Atlanta Police were not going to pull you over so long as you were driving slow and not causing problems.
Now, however, you DO have an alternative, albeit an expensive one that really exploits working-class people and funnels the money to asshole tech bros and venture capitalists, and this has really changed the way people behave.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 8:19 AM on August 28 [34 favorites]
Now, however, you DO have an alternative, albeit an expensive one that really exploits working-class people and funnels the money to asshole tech bros and venture capitalists, and this has really changed the way people behave.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 8:19 AM on August 28 [34 favorites]
The role of public transportation shouldn't be ignored here. The article cites the experience in Utah, where people reported drinking just as much as before, but finding a way home other than driving themselves. This only works when there is a way home other than driving -- and the more convenient that way is, the better it works too. This isn't scientific at all, but just glancing at some fact sheets I see that NY has a per capita fatality rate one-half that of the country, while Wyoming's is double.
Public transit is a hammer that works on a lot of differently-shaped nails.
posted by dbx at 8:20 AM on August 28 [78 favorites]
Public transit is a hammer that works on a lot of differently-shaped nails.
posted by dbx at 8:20 AM on August 28 [78 favorites]
This summer Massachusetts came pretty close to overturning it's 40 year old ban on Happy Hours. Since 1983 it's been illegal in the state to discount the price of alcohol because encouraging people to consume cheap beer at around the time they're driving their cars home from work is another one of those incredibly stupid ideas that should be freaking obvious to everyone.
The argument for overturning the ban is (of course) that restaurants can't remain profitable without discounting alcohol, although the Massachusetts Restaurant Association is against Happy Hours because they don't want the liability.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 8:20 AM on August 28 [11 favorites]
The argument for overturning the ban is (of course) that restaurants can't remain profitable without discounting alcohol, although the Massachusetts Restaurant Association is against Happy Hours because they don't want the liability.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 8:20 AM on August 28 [11 favorites]
. It was well-established that the Atlanta Police were not going to pull you over so long as you were driving slow and not causing problems.
Listen, the Atlanta police nabbed before I even got out of the parking lot at The Earl.
posted by Kitteh at 8:21 AM on August 28 [9 favorites]
Listen, the Atlanta police nabbed before I even got out of the parking lot at The Earl.
posted by Kitteh at 8:21 AM on August 28 [9 favorites]
I wonder if our car-centric city design in the US has something to do with our relatively high BAC limits, as well as with our high rates of alcohol-related car crashes. A recent study in my city reflected what the article says about the latter.
Drunk driving is always ultimately a poor personal choice, full stop. That said, something the article misses is that it's likely influenced by the lack of alternatives, like public transit or affordable rideshare services nowadays (to be clear: there is no excuse for intoxicated driving, and I fully agree that it is always worth it to be safe and save lives).
This notion is bolstered by the leniency we give for driver's license requirements. It's very hard to function in the US without a car, so our licensure standards are pitifully low and the DMV is pretty lenient. We cater to car dependence in so many subtle ways.
It is crazy to me that our bars not only have parking lots, but big parking lots. You can't convince me that all those parked cars are driven by designated drivers.
I know really good public transit in every city in the US is a pipe dream, but I do think it's something we would need to combat our horrible epidemic of road deaths in the US, to which alcohol contributes a major portion.
I don't think the solution is as simple as "just don't drink." Drinking is a common social activity and it is important in our culture (and this is coming from someone who doesn't drink). But if we had meaningful alternatives to driving, maybe states wouldn't be so reticent to lower their BAC limits, which, as the article explains, saves a LOT of lives.
posted by aquamvidam at 8:21 AM on August 28 [20 favorites]
Drunk driving is always ultimately a poor personal choice, full stop. That said, something the article misses is that it's likely influenced by the lack of alternatives, like public transit or affordable rideshare services nowadays (to be clear: there is no excuse for intoxicated driving, and I fully agree that it is always worth it to be safe and save lives).
This notion is bolstered by the leniency we give for driver's license requirements. It's very hard to function in the US without a car, so our licensure standards are pitifully low and the DMV is pretty lenient. We cater to car dependence in so many subtle ways.
It is crazy to me that our bars not only have parking lots, but big parking lots. You can't convince me that all those parked cars are driven by designated drivers.
I know really good public transit in every city in the US is a pipe dream, but I do think it's something we would need to combat our horrible epidemic of road deaths in the US, to which alcohol contributes a major portion.
I don't think the solution is as simple as "just don't drink." Drinking is a common social activity and it is important in our culture (and this is coming from someone who doesn't drink). But if we had meaningful alternatives to driving, maybe states wouldn't be so reticent to lower their BAC limits, which, as the article explains, saves a LOT of lives.
posted by aquamvidam at 8:21 AM on August 28 [20 favorites]
Alcoholism is baked into society.
Drinking and driving is baked into US society. Bars have rules for parking and in most cities have to be located away from neighborhoods. In most US cities, bars stay open later than affordable public transit, leaving only private transport (uber and cabs). Most also tow cars left in their parking lots overnight.
That Dril meme "drunk driving may kill a lot of people, but it also helps a lot of people get to work on time, so it's impossible to say if its bad or not," is not a joke.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:22 AM on August 28 [23 favorites]
Drinking and driving is baked into US society. Bars have rules for parking and in most cities have to be located away from neighborhoods. In most US cities, bars stay open later than affordable public transit, leaving only private transport (uber and cabs). Most also tow cars left in their parking lots overnight.
That Dril meme "drunk driving may kill a lot of people, but it also helps a lot of people get to work on time, so it's impossible to say if its bad or not," is not a joke.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:22 AM on August 28 [23 favorites]
If I have a drink, the car stays where it is until the next day. If you can't afford a cab or alternate arrangements, then seek counseling for your addiction.
Entirely clueless question from someone who never drinks--doesn't one drink metabolize in one to two hours? So if you have a drink and then hang out for 2-3 hours, would you not be safe to drive home?
This isn't relevant to anything except me being slightly more competent re: addiction issues.
posted by brook horse at 8:23 AM on August 28 [5 favorites]
Entirely clueless question from someone who never drinks--doesn't one drink metabolize in one to two hours? So if you have a drink and then hang out for 2-3 hours, would you not be safe to drive home?
This isn't relevant to anything except me being slightly more competent re: addiction issues.
posted by brook horse at 8:23 AM on August 28 [5 favorites]
Listen, the Atlanta police nabbed before I even got out of the parking lot at The Earl.
Seriously? I am so sorry. What year was this? I confess I've rolled out of that parking lot any number of times back in the day. The only time I've ever been pulled over was when the fuse for the headlights popped out but I didn't notice because I was driving up brightly-lit Moreland, and even then the cop was like "let's put that fuse back in... ok that worked, drive real slow and careful on the way home."
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 8:24 AM on August 28 [2 favorites]
Seriously? I am so sorry. What year was this? I confess I've rolled out of that parking lot any number of times back in the day. The only time I've ever been pulled over was when the fuse for the headlights popped out but I didn't notice because I was driving up brightly-lit Moreland, and even then the cop was like "let's put that fuse back in... ok that worked, drive real slow and careful on the way home."
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 8:24 AM on August 28 [2 favorites]
brook horse, it's not that it's not possible, it's just that most people don't nurse drinks for the duration of their stay at bar. It's more like, at best, having a drink once per hour. (Except those of us in recovery where we saw how many drinks we could get in us an X amount of time was a challenge.)
posted by Kitteh at 8:25 AM on August 28 [1 favorite]
posted by Kitteh at 8:25 AM on August 28 [1 favorite]
Seriously? I am so sorry. What year was this? I confess I've rolled out of that parking lot any number of times back in the day,
1999. I did most of my drinking at The Earl, the Gravity Pub (RIP), the Flatiron, Mary's, and occasionally venturing over to the Euclid Avenue Yacht Club. When I lived in Candler Park, I had no reason to drive drunk. I just staggered home.
posted by Kitteh at 8:27 AM on August 28 [4 favorites]
1999. I did most of my drinking at The Earl, the Gravity Pub (RIP), the Flatiron, Mary's, and occasionally venturing over to the Euclid Avenue Yacht Club. When I lived in Candler Park, I had no reason to drive drunk. I just staggered home.
posted by Kitteh at 8:27 AM on August 28 [4 favorites]
Haha I've done some drinking at all of those back in the day. I lived in Candler Park from 2010-2020.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 8:30 AM on August 28 [1 favorite]
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 8:30 AM on August 28 [1 favorite]
Thank you, Kitteh, that's helpful!
The only people I'm regularly around who drink generally only do so at restaurants, typically having one drink and hanging out at the restaurant for the next 2 hours (if it's not busy) or checking out shops or the park or whatever nearby. Or having a margarita with lunch and then going out for dinner in the evening, that sort of thing. I was wondering if I needed to be worried about them.
posted by brook horse at 8:30 AM on August 28 [2 favorites]
The only people I'm regularly around who drink generally only do so at restaurants, typically having one drink and hanging out at the restaurant for the next 2 hours (if it's not busy) or checking out shops or the park or whatever nearby. Or having a margarita with lunch and then going out for dinner in the evening, that sort of thing. I was wondering if I needed to be worried about them.
posted by brook horse at 8:30 AM on August 28 [2 favorites]
I think of the country bars in rural Wisconsin
Many of the larger ones are technically hotels, specifically because of this kind of thing. Half-dozen rooms off to one side, or out the back.
posted by aramaic at 8:33 AM on August 28 [3 favorites]
Many of the larger ones are technically hotels, specifically because of this kind of thing. Half-dozen rooms off to one side, or out the back.
posted by aramaic at 8:33 AM on August 28 [3 favorites]
Drinking and driving is baked into US society.
I live in Ontario and I know of people at the lake I camp at who regularly drive completely fucked up. There's at least one camper in the park who we're waiting to call the cops on, the next time they pour themselves into their SUV and go for a tour. It's a North American issue, with varying degrees of prevelance.
posted by Dark Messiah at 8:33 AM on August 28 [5 favorites]
I live in Ontario and I know of people at the lake I camp at who regularly drive completely fucked up. There's at least one camper in the park who we're waiting to call the cops on, the next time they pour themselves into their SUV and go for a tour. It's a North American issue, with varying degrees of prevelance.
posted by Dark Messiah at 8:33 AM on August 28 [5 favorites]
Sweden's level is 0.2 with significant consequences, and they do regular random traffic stops and check so people traditionally were super careful about being absolutely sober when getting behind the wheel. I remember the absolute shock of my inlaws when I volunteered to pick up my sister-in-law across town one evening shortly after I moved here over 20 years ago. Them: "But.. you've been drinking." Me: "I had a small glass of wine with dinner over four hours ago." Them: "Yes, you've been drinking." And that was that. The general rule was: if you've had a single drink at any time of the day, you do not get behind the wheel. But then cheap digital alcohol meters started showing up in gadget stores and suddenly there was a sort of cultural swing to understanding that the conventional wisdom was grossly overestimating BAC, and attitudes seemed to get more lax.
posted by St. Oops at 8:38 AM on August 28 [13 favorites]
posted by St. Oops at 8:38 AM on August 28 [13 favorites]
As I get older, I realize there is no safe limit. You are impaired even with a mild hangover the next day and you blow 0.0.
I think it'd be cute to have a flotilla of self-driving cars going 30 mph in the slow lane with their hazards blinking at 2 AM. The e-chauffeur of shame.
posted by credulous at 8:40 AM on August 28 [8 favorites]
I think it'd be cute to have a flotilla of self-driving cars going 30 mph in the slow lane with their hazards blinking at 2 AM. The e-chauffeur of shame.
posted by credulous at 8:40 AM on August 28 [8 favorites]
Sweden's level is 0.2 with significant consequences,
0.02.
posted by zamboni at 8:43 AM on August 28 [14 favorites]
0.02.
posted by zamboni at 8:43 AM on August 28 [14 favorites]
For Australia, that's 0.05 not 0.5. (0.5 would be dead.) Sweden is 0.02? 0.2 is quite high. Usually in a coma around 0.3.
This subject has fascinated me for awhile. So many non-alcoholic means of being equally impaired are not restricted because of the testing not being easy. Sedative antihistamines, for example.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 8:44 AM on August 28 [5 favorites]
This subject has fascinated me for awhile. So many non-alcoholic means of being equally impaired are not restricted because of the testing not being easy. Sedative antihistamines, for example.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 8:44 AM on August 28 [5 favorites]
Sedative antihistamines, for example.
Or weed, if you live in Atlanta or a lot of other places. The downtown highway is gridlocked every afternoon and it's like a linear cloud of pot smoke.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 8:46 AM on August 28 [4 favorites]
Or weed, if you live in Atlanta or a lot of other places. The downtown highway is gridlocked every afternoon and it's like a linear cloud of pot smoke.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 8:46 AM on August 28 [4 favorites]
Sweden's level is 0.2 with significant consequences,
0.02.
0.2 in grams per litre, which is the unit typically used in a lot of Europe.
posted by Dysk at 8:47 AM on August 28 [14 favorites]
0.02.
0.2 in grams per litre, which is the unit typically used in a lot of Europe.
posted by Dysk at 8:47 AM on August 28 [14 favorites]
So if you have a drink and then hang out for 2-3 hours, would you not be safe to drive home?
Part of the DWI investigation script is “how much have you been drinking tonight”
The cops always get back “maybe one beer 5 hours ago” so the best policy is indeed to have a totally honest & solid answer of “last night” or further back.
posted by torokunai at 8:50 AM on August 28 [1 favorite]
Part of the DWI investigation script is “how much have you been drinking tonight”
The cops always get back “maybe one beer 5 hours ago” so the best policy is indeed to have a totally honest & solid answer of “last night” or further back.
posted by torokunai at 8:50 AM on August 28 [1 favorite]
So if you have a drink and then hang out for 2-3 hours, would you not be safe to drive home?
I would argue it's better to develop the habit of simply not having anything. Then you don't need to worry about losing track of time, or "well what's the big deal this one time..."
posted by Dark Messiah at 8:52 AM on August 28 [3 favorites]
I would argue it's better to develop the habit of simply not having anything. Then you don't need to worry about losing track of time, or "well what's the big deal this one time..."
posted by Dark Messiah at 8:52 AM on August 28 [3 favorites]
Sweden's level is 0.2 with significant consequences,
0.02.
Sorry! Yes, I meant 0.2 permille, which is the conventional way of expressing it here.
posted by St. Oops at 8:53 AM on August 28 [5 favorites]
0.02.
Sorry! Yes, I meant 0.2 permille, which is the conventional way of expressing it here.
posted by St. Oops at 8:53 AM on August 28 [5 favorites]
In Scotland, being Scotland, has decided on a .05% BAC. England/Wales/Northern Ireland have .08% BAC. Yay devolution.
I've never driven drunk. I've driven high once, something I completely regret and terrified the shit out of me. I wasn't caught, but that did enough to completely put me off the idea of driving under the influence of anything.
I'd be happy to see lower BAC limits in general, but the UK has almost as bad a relation with alcohol as the US (binge drinking is rampant), so I don't expect that to be something that the government will burn political capital on anytime soon.
posted by Hactar at 8:55 AM on August 28 [3 favorites]
I've never driven drunk. I've driven high once, something I completely regret and terrified the shit out of me. I wasn't caught, but that did enough to completely put me off the idea of driving under the influence of anything.
I'd be happy to see lower BAC limits in general, but the UK has almost as bad a relation with alcohol as the US (binge drinking is rampant), so I don't expect that to be something that the government will burn political capital on anytime soon.
posted by Hactar at 8:55 AM on August 28 [3 favorites]
For Australia, that's 0.05 not 0.5. (0.5 would be dead.)
Mine was just a typo- I flagged mine for correction. As I learned while checking the Swedish BAC, 0.5 is not immediately fatal.
The drunkest drinking driver in Sweden: blood alcohol concentration 0.545% w/v
posted by zamboni at 8:55 AM on August 28 [3 favorites]
Mine was just a typo- I flagged mine for correction. As I learned while checking the Swedish BAC, 0.5 is not immediately fatal.
The drunkest drinking driver in Sweden: blood alcohol concentration 0.545% w/v
posted by zamboni at 8:55 AM on August 28 [3 favorites]
The level of intoxication a tenured alcoholic can endure — and in fact remain conscious through — is absolutely horrifying on a physiological level.
posted by Dark Messiah at 9:01 AM on August 28 [9 favorites]
posted by Dark Messiah at 9:01 AM on August 28 [9 favorites]
I'm skeptical that any law change not attached to routine random checks is likely to change things much - I followed the link to main study that claims an 11% reduction but couldn't parse how the study concluded that - it could be that I lack the expertise, but it seemed to be assuming all change over time had to do with the policy on BAC, and not, you know, improvements to car safety, Uber, changes in drinking culture, changes in speed limits, etc.
If it were up to me, I'd make the routine random checks happen on highway entrance ramps, since I assume that's where most alcohol related fatalities/serious injuries take place (though I couldn't find a discussion of this in the white papers/articles linked to).
posted by coffeecat at 9:04 AM on August 28
If it were up to me, I'd make the routine random checks happen on highway entrance ramps, since I assume that's where most alcohol related fatalities/serious injuries take place (though I couldn't find a discussion of this in the white papers/articles linked to).
posted by coffeecat at 9:04 AM on August 28
If I have a drink, the car stays where it is until the next day. If you can't afford a cab or alternate arrangements, then seek counseling for your addiction.
OK so, I don't know if you MEANT to say that rich people can drink while poor people are addicts??? but that is what you said there.
"Alcoholism" which I recognize on MeFi means "ever drinking" may or may not be baked into a lot of North American society. What IS baked into North American society is a violent hatred of mass transit and dense living. As long as people have to drive everywhere, all the time, for every single thing, some of those people are going to be impaired.
Instead of trying, as literally everyone has failed to do for all of time, to dictate what people put into their bodies, we could just fund some motherfucking bus routes.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 9:05 AM on August 28 [55 favorites]
OK so, I don't know if you MEANT to say that rich people can drink while poor people are addicts??? but that is what you said there.
"Alcoholism" which I recognize on MeFi means "ever drinking" may or may not be baked into a lot of North American society. What IS baked into North American society is a violent hatred of mass transit and dense living. As long as people have to drive everywhere, all the time, for every single thing, some of those people are going to be impaired.
Instead of trying, as literally everyone has failed to do for all of time, to dictate what people put into their bodies, we could just fund some motherfucking bus routes.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 9:05 AM on August 28 [55 favorites]
As a beer writer, unsurprisingly, I spend a lot of time being very conscious about consumption and driving and the issues around it. The rise of easier transportation efforts (like Uber/Lyft and the adjustment of taxi companies in that time) have made it far easier to be safer.
I remember a fair amount of grousing amongst some police departments that Uber/Lyft were actually causing a drop in revenue because of fewer DUIs for awhile. That was a bit eye opening.
posted by drewbage1847 at 9:14 AM on August 28 [10 favorites]
I remember a fair amount of grousing amongst some police departments that Uber/Lyft were actually causing a drop in revenue because of fewer DUIs for awhile. That was a bit eye opening.
posted by drewbage1847 at 9:14 AM on August 28 [10 favorites]
Instead of trying, as literally everyone has failed to do for all of time, to dictate what people put into their bodies, we could just fund some motherfucking bus routes.
I'm right there with you on the transit and density, but you're posing a false choice, and you're equating stopping people from driving while drunk with prohibition.
We need denser housing and better transit, and we need to stop people from driving drunk.
posted by gurple at 9:15 AM on August 28 [9 favorites]
I'm right there with you on the transit and density, but you're posing a false choice, and you're equating stopping people from driving while drunk with prohibition.
We need denser housing and better transit, and we need to stop people from driving drunk.
posted by gurple at 9:15 AM on August 28 [9 favorites]
OK so, I don't know if you MEANT to say that rich people can drink while poor people are addicts???
This is a ridiculous reading of what I said.
If you can't at least keep people safe from the most dangerous effects of a habit you indulge in, then you need to remedy it. It's that simple. It's not excusing "rich people," it is requesting that they leverage their resources for the safety of others.
posted by Dark Messiah at 9:16 AM on August 28 [5 favorites]
This is a ridiculous reading of what I said.
If you can't at least keep people safe from the most dangerous effects of a habit you indulge in, then you need to remedy it. It's that simple. It's not excusing "rich people," it is requesting that they leverage their resources for the safety of others.
posted by Dark Messiah at 9:16 AM on August 28 [5 favorites]
In the US the hidden penalty for any DUI is huge increase in car insurance rates for the long term. And just as insurance companies routinely check an applicant's credit rating, it should be assumed that credit raters also check public records.
posted by Brian B. at 9:17 AM on August 28 [3 favorites]
posted by Brian B. at 9:17 AM on August 28 [3 favorites]
A company that makes breathalyzers occasionally publishes videos showing how long it takes people to hit the 0.08 limit.
Fair warning, the videos are a marketing tool and little too glib for my liking, but they are fascinating: most people really have no idea how to gauge their current level of impairment. A person's weight, how much (and what) they had to eat that day, their genetic disposition: all these (and more) are variables that complicate things quickly.
So yeah, we need to reduce the rate in the US, it will save lives.
How Many Drinks to 0.08? (300lb. NFL Lineman vs. 110lb. Woman)
How Many Glasses of Wine to Reach 0.08% BAC?
posted by jeremias at 9:18 AM on August 28 [3 favorites]
Fair warning, the videos are a marketing tool and little too glib for my liking, but they are fascinating: most people really have no idea how to gauge their current level of impairment. A person's weight, how much (and what) they had to eat that day, their genetic disposition: all these (and more) are variables that complicate things quickly.
So yeah, we need to reduce the rate in the US, it will save lives.
How Many Drinks to 0.08? (300lb. NFL Lineman vs. 110lb. Woman)
How Many Glasses of Wine to Reach 0.08% BAC?
posted by jeremias at 9:18 AM on August 28 [3 favorites]
Hot take: The cure to drinking and driving is better public transit.
posted by latkes at 9:25 AM on August 28 [30 favorites]
posted by latkes at 9:25 AM on August 28 [30 favorites]
I definitely remember campaign around always selecting a designated driver when I was young. I can’t remember the last time I saw one of those maybe that’s the Uber/Lyft effect.
I actually learned to drive stick from a drunk friend of my brothers who thankfully decided it was safer to have a 15 year old with learners permit drive than to drive himself. He need to have his car so he could get to work in the morning.
From an urban planning perspective, I definitely think more people should live in neighborhoods where there is at least one place you can walk to to drink. Or ideally two: one a dive bar the other a decent restaurant. Beter public transit too.
posted by CostcoCultist at 9:26 AM on August 28 [6 favorites]
I actually learned to drive stick from a drunk friend of my brothers who thankfully decided it was safer to have a 15 year old with learners permit drive than to drive himself. He need to have his car so he could get to work in the morning.
From an urban planning perspective, I definitely think more people should live in neighborhoods where there is at least one place you can walk to to drink. Or ideally two: one a dive bar the other a decent restaurant. Beter public transit too.
posted by CostcoCultist at 9:26 AM on August 28 [6 favorites]
Here in Hungary, it's 0.00. If you've had anything alcoholic to drink, you don't get behind the wheel. Period.
posted by trip and a half at 9:28 AM on August 28 [5 favorites]
posted by trip and a half at 9:28 AM on August 28 [5 favorites]
> Hot take: The cure to drinking and driving is better public transit.
Yes! Basically all the arguments against driving drunk apply to driving, period.
posted by eraserbones at 9:30 AM on August 28 [9 favorites]
Yes! Basically all the arguments against driving drunk apply to driving, period.
posted by eraserbones at 9:30 AM on August 28 [9 favorites]
But I know, the only thing the US hates more than mass transit is making anything better for anyone, so
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 9:32 AM on August 28 [16 favorites]
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 9:32 AM on August 28 [16 favorites]
America arn't going to abandon their love affair with their automobiles and just hop on a city bus anytime soon. Have you been on a bus in any large metropolitan city lately. It ain't pretty.
posted by Czjewel at 9:38 AM on August 28 [1 favorite]
posted by Czjewel at 9:38 AM on August 28 [1 favorite]
Yes, US infrastructure and city planning makes it harder than it should be to avoid drinking and driving; even where it's been overhauled for improved urbanism.
For instance in LA most of the parking lots for Metro stations don't permit overnight parking. Similarly most commercial parking lots near restaurants and nightlife. And a fair amount of street parking, too.
It's actively difficult to plan to drive one way and catch a ride home (paid or otherwise) and retrieve your car the next day without risking a tow or an expensive ticket. (Including from your neighborhood's nearby train station.) Or to do so in a pinch, if you're drunk and didn't plan to be. The trains stop running relatively early, too.
And Uber/Lyft are expensive, unreliable and can pose safety concerns of their own.
most people really have no idea how to gauge their current level of impairment
I have one of those little keychain breathalyzers -- it's true that how intoxicated you feel at a particular BAC can vary wildly.
In the US the hidden penalty for any DUI is huge increase in car insurance rates for the long term.
A criminal record has an impact on employability amongst other imperial entanglements.
Here in Hungary, it's 0.00.
And what's the enforcement like with that rule?
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:39 AM on August 28 [4 favorites]
For instance in LA most of the parking lots for Metro stations don't permit overnight parking. Similarly most commercial parking lots near restaurants and nightlife. And a fair amount of street parking, too.
It's actively difficult to plan to drive one way and catch a ride home (paid or otherwise) and retrieve your car the next day without risking a tow or an expensive ticket. (Including from your neighborhood's nearby train station.) Or to do so in a pinch, if you're drunk and didn't plan to be. The trains stop running relatively early, too.
And Uber/Lyft are expensive, unreliable and can pose safety concerns of their own.
most people really have no idea how to gauge their current level of impairment
I have one of those little keychain breathalyzers -- it's true that how intoxicated you feel at a particular BAC can vary wildly.
In the US the hidden penalty for any DUI is huge increase in car insurance rates for the long term.
A criminal record has an impact on employability amongst other imperial entanglements.
Here in Hungary, it's 0.00.
And what's the enforcement like with that rule?
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:39 AM on August 28 [4 favorites]
Another take: Ryanair is making a pitch to lower BAC in their passengers. "we don't allow people to drink-drive, yet we keep putting them up in aircraft at 33,000 feet".
posted by BobTheScientist at 9:42 AM on August 28 [3 favorites]
posted by BobTheScientist at 9:42 AM on August 28 [3 favorites]
My DWI meant a suspended license for a year, a hefty fine (more on that in a sec), community service, and a huge spike in my insurance rates....which I couldn't afford. (I was making $8/hour in that period of my life).
So yes, as someone who has been broke as a joke for most of her life, getting a DUI was more expensive than a cab ride or a bus ride. Could I have gotten a cab that night? Probably, if I hadn't drunk the last of my potential cab money, rationalizing it in a dumb way that drunks do.
A richer person would have an easier time, a better lawyer, and be able to pay a fine in full. If you have any kind of fine like that one for DUI, not only do you have to pay the fine in installments, BUT you are charged a interest rate from the outsourced office who accept the fines. That fine took me three years to pay off because of interest.
I'm not arguing that public transport should be better but it will always be very very hard for folks to give up the idea of leaving their car at a parking lot overnight to get home safely.
posted by Kitteh at 9:46 AM on August 28 [6 favorites]
So yes, as someone who has been broke as a joke for most of her life, getting a DUI was more expensive than a cab ride or a bus ride. Could I have gotten a cab that night? Probably, if I hadn't drunk the last of my potential cab money, rationalizing it in a dumb way that drunks do.
A richer person would have an easier time, a better lawyer, and be able to pay a fine in full. If you have any kind of fine like that one for DUI, not only do you have to pay the fine in installments, BUT you are charged a interest rate from the outsourced office who accept the fines. That fine took me three years to pay off because of interest.
I'm not arguing that public transport should be better but it will always be very very hard for folks to give up the idea of leaving their car at a parking lot overnight to get home safely.
posted by Kitteh at 9:46 AM on August 28 [6 favorites]
Have you been on a bus in any large metropolitan city lately.
Yes. The times I've taken Milwaukee buses (2023, 2024) have been absolutely fine. When I had a bus commute in Brooklyn, it was kind of slow and annoying, and I did convince a bus preacher once that she had to exorcise me, but it wasn't some kind of dystopian hellscape.
I would very happily have a bus commute again if city buses were just a little more frequent and more convenient.
posted by Jeanne at 9:49 AM on August 28 [20 favorites]
Yes. The times I've taken Milwaukee buses (2023, 2024) have been absolutely fine. When I had a bus commute in Brooklyn, it was kind of slow and annoying, and I did convince a bus preacher once that she had to exorcise me, but it wasn't some kind of dystopian hellscape.
I would very happily have a bus commute again if city buses were just a little more frequent and more convenient.
posted by Jeanne at 9:49 AM on August 28 [20 favorites]
I mean, what's sorta interesting is that in the US National Safety Board report the article links to, the rate of alcohol related driving fatalities doesn't neatly correlate to which states have the best public transportation. Why is Michigan better than Wisconsin, for example?
On another note, someone way above mentioned liability of restaurants/bars - I live in a state where individual bar tenders can be held liable, which is pretty messed up. How a bartender is supposed to know which patrons are driving and which are walking or taking a rideshare home is beyond me (it's one thing for bars located in rural areas, but this recently got applied to a bar located in an urban downtown).
posted by coffeecat at 9:51 AM on August 28 [1 favorite]
On another note, someone way above mentioned liability of restaurants/bars - I live in a state where individual bar tenders can be held liable, which is pretty messed up. How a bartender is supposed to know which patrons are driving and which are walking or taking a rideshare home is beyond me (it's one thing for bars located in rural areas, but this recently got applied to a bar located in an urban downtown).
posted by coffeecat at 9:51 AM on August 28 [1 favorite]
Here in Hungary, it's 0.00.
And what's the enforcement like with that rule?
I don't drive, but my understanding is that enforcement is pretty rigorous.
A total of 2.7 million tests were carried out by the police in 2019, ranking Hungary among the best performing EU countries in enforcing drink-driving on the roads.
That's from this pdf at the ETSC site.
posted by trip and a half at 9:57 AM on August 28 [3 favorites]
And what's the enforcement like with that rule?
I don't drive, but my understanding is that enforcement is pretty rigorous.
A total of 2.7 million tests were carried out by the police in 2019, ranking Hungary among the best performing EU countries in enforcing drink-driving on the roads.
That's from this pdf at the ETSC site.
posted by trip and a half at 9:57 AM on August 28 [3 favorites]
The problem with public transportation as a solution to drunk driving is that intoxicated riders are already a big part of the reason so many people don't want to take public transportation.
I ride the bus and the light rail a lot and at no point have I ever thought "this experience could be improved by adding more drunk people."
posted by Parasite Unseen at 9:59 AM on August 28 [21 favorites]
I ride the bus and the light rail a lot and at no point have I ever thought "this experience could be improved by adding more drunk people."
posted by Parasite Unseen at 9:59 AM on August 28 [21 favorites]
The UK fall in drink driving is often credited to work done to change attitudes around it being acceptable. There is a short UK Government article about the Government campaign to do this here. From personal experience I would say this really started to kick in around the time my generation were hitting the point of getting licences and going to pubs (about 35 years ago). It really did become unacceptable to do it in a lot of friend groups. Maybe not everywhere, but across a huge fraction of the population, including many of the worst offenders, young men.
Notably, you can lose your driving licence if you bicycle while sufficiently over the limit. Ie you could get a very long driving ban if caught drunk cycling. Plus a fine, potentially also plus €500 to cover a psychological evaluation. This guy got banned from skateboarding too.
posted by biffa at 9:59 AM on August 28 [4 favorites]
Notably, you can lose your driving licence if you bicycle while sufficiently over the limit. Ie you could get a very long driving ban if caught drunk cycling. Plus a fine, potentially also plus €500 to cover a psychological evaluation. This guy got banned from skateboarding too.
posted by biffa at 9:59 AM on August 28 [4 favorites]
I live in a state where individual bar tenders can be held liable, which is pretty messed up. How a bartender is supposed to know which patrons are driving and which are walking or taking a rideshare
In Texas, you are not to serve someone to the point of intoxication. Method of travel is irrelevant. Indeed, if they were walking home, they could still get a ticket for public intoxication. I'm not a fan of laws like the one you mention, but it's for reasons other than "how is this drunk person getting home".
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 10:06 AM on August 28 [3 favorites]
In Texas, you are not to serve someone to the point of intoxication. Method of travel is irrelevant. Indeed, if they were walking home, they could still get a ticket for public intoxication. I'm not a fan of laws like the one you mention, but it's for reasons other than "how is this drunk person getting home".
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 10:06 AM on August 28 [3 favorites]
The problem with public transportation as a solution to drunk driving is that intoxicated riders are already a big part of the reason so many people don't want to take public transportation.
The people who use public transit as their solution are people responsible enough to do it instead of waiting 2 hours for the alcohol to process out of the body. So they're usually also responsible enough not to get 3 sheets to the wind.
posted by ocschwar at 10:07 AM on August 28
The people who use public transit as their solution are people responsible enough to do it instead of waiting 2 hours for the alcohol to process out of the body. So they're usually also responsible enough not to get 3 sheets to the wind.
posted by ocschwar at 10:07 AM on August 28
Most states have some kind of a dram shop law. It's usually a negligence standard, not strict liability. The bartender is expected to act with reasonable prudence.
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:08 AM on August 28 [1 favorite]
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:08 AM on August 28 [1 favorite]
Good. From the article: "That implies that reducing the national BAC limit to .05 could safe an estimated 1,500 American lives per year."
Better: Raise the tax on alcohol. "...a 10% price increase would cut the death rate [from alcohol-caused diseases by] 9-25%. For the US in 2010, this represents 2,000-6,000 averted deaths/year."
Best: Both.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 10:08 AM on August 28 [2 favorites]
Better: Raise the tax on alcohol. "...a 10% price increase would cut the death rate [from alcohol-caused diseases by] 9-25%. For the US in 2010, this represents 2,000-6,000 averted deaths/year."
Best: Both.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 10:08 AM on August 28 [2 favorites]
Curious...Would one glass of wine be enough to make you not drive...Sorry for awkward syntax sentence there.
posted by Czjewel at 10:14 AM on August 28 [1 favorite]
posted by Czjewel at 10:14 AM on August 28 [1 favorite]
Another take: Ryanair is making a pitch to lower BAC in their passengers. "we don't allow people to drink-drive, yet we keep putting them up in aircraft at 33,000 feet".
Is Ryanair letting passengers operate the planes? That would certainly explain a lot of the things I have heard about them.
(I realize that this is almost certainly about drunk assholes harassing the flight attendants, but the image that this pull quote created was too funny to me to resist.)
posted by jacquilynne at 10:15 AM on August 28 [9 favorites]
Is Ryanair letting passengers operate the planes? That would certainly explain a lot of the things I have heard about them.
(I realize that this is almost certainly about drunk assholes harassing the flight attendants, but the image that this pull quote created was too funny to me to resist.)
posted by jacquilynne at 10:15 AM on August 28 [9 favorites]
I've rarely been more horrified at another person's behavior than when a newish acquaintance and budding friend drove me to dinner and then proceeded to have three drinks.
The idea that he'd consider that a socially acceptable thing to do, with someone he didn't know well -- never mind morally and risk-tolerance-ly acceptable -- really opened my eyes.
As long as people choose or are forced to drive in order to live their lives, some of them will drive drunk. The legal penalties need to be scarier than they are -- mostly, I think, in terms of "likelihood of getting caught".
posted by gurple at 10:20 AM on August 28 [1 favorite]
The idea that he'd consider that a socially acceptable thing to do, with someone he didn't know well -- never mind morally and risk-tolerance-ly acceptable -- really opened my eyes.
As long as people choose or are forced to drive in order to live their lives, some of them will drive drunk. The legal penalties need to be scarier than they are -- mostly, I think, in terms of "likelihood of getting caught".
posted by gurple at 10:20 AM on August 28 [1 favorite]
Bollards. Narrow car lanes. Trees. Mailboxes. Rocks.
Very reliable ways to inflict instant justice on careless drivers without any legal entanglements.
Let the car repair shops collect and enforce the fines.
posted by ocschwar at 10:21 AM on August 28 [10 favorites]
Very reliable ways to inflict instant justice on careless drivers without any legal entanglements.
Let the car repair shops collect and enforce the fines.
posted by ocschwar at 10:21 AM on August 28 [10 favorites]
"we don't allow people to drink-drive, yet we keep putting them up in aircraft at 33,000 feet".
They should lower the limit to 23,000 feet.
posted by Brian B. at 10:23 AM on August 28 [15 favorites]
They should lower the limit to 23,000 feet.
posted by Brian B. at 10:23 AM on August 28 [15 favorites]
Low speed limits, bollards, I don’t care if the repairs are even expensive as long as the risk to people drops. Let air-pillow cars carom home like bumblebees.
Rural non-driving
posted by clew at 10:24 AM on August 28 [3 favorites]
Rural non-driving
posted by clew at 10:24 AM on August 28 [3 favorites]
hmmm?
Started my driving (age 17) in a rather spread out suburban area. And being a responsible teenager, one of the first things I did was drive drunk. But I was at least kind of responsible, because when I had a bunch of booze in me, I slowed down, took extra care. Whereas when sober, my default was FAST, Mario Andretti bullshit.
The first (and only) alcohol related incident I had came when I'd only had one drink, I was probably under .05. But even that one drink loosened me up, got me interested in driving extra fast. At some point I was going 80 mph and realized I wasn't going to make the corner. Nothing bad happened (except to somebody's lawn). But it scared the shit out of me. I wised up.
Which doesn't mean I stopped combining alcohol with driving. Not even close. I just got way more careful. Long story short, I've never had an alcohol related driving incident since. Or non-alcohol. Spotless driving record since 1983 and I've logged a lot of miles, more than few of them while technically over some limit or other. But not that many as my alcohol intake generally went down once I hit my twenties.
Speaking of which, I've driven at least a little high on marijuana a lot, pretty much all the time for a few decades, always with a roach in the ashtray in case of a traffic jam or whatever. All without incident, though I'm sure I got honked at a few times for driving too slow.
I also did a lot of LSD for a while, which I found only made me a better driver. So much so that I became the designated driver when such shenanigans were being pursued. Lots of long hauls, hours and hours of country roads and highways. When you're in the zone, you're in the zone. Though I should note, I was never that high, more of a microdose situation. I found LSD a pretty stern master. If I was feeling too giddy, it wouldn't let me anywhere near a piece of heavy machinery.
What's my point here? I don't know. Maybe just to dump more data into the conversation, suggest that none of this is simple. There's actual reality in all of its fuzziness and there's The Law (and its specificities). The two don't really have a lot in common but we have the latter because we need something to at least to begin to tame the former. If that means veteran cosmic drivers such as myself have to adjust their habits in order to help keep sloppy maniacs off the road, I guess that's the price one pays for choosing to hang out with other humans.
Finally, I'm sixty-five now and haven't driven in any form of intoxication (except for maybe a little residual marijuana) for at least a decade. Because I don't do the chemicals anymore and the DUI laws in my jurisdiction are rather strict (.05, last I looked), so why even think of risking it?
posted by philip-random at 10:25 AM on August 28 [7 favorites]
Started my driving (age 17) in a rather spread out suburban area. And being a responsible teenager, one of the first things I did was drive drunk. But I was at least kind of responsible, because when I had a bunch of booze in me, I slowed down, took extra care. Whereas when sober, my default was FAST, Mario Andretti bullshit.
The first (and only) alcohol related incident I had came when I'd only had one drink, I was probably under .05. But even that one drink loosened me up, got me interested in driving extra fast. At some point I was going 80 mph and realized I wasn't going to make the corner. Nothing bad happened (except to somebody's lawn). But it scared the shit out of me. I wised up.
Which doesn't mean I stopped combining alcohol with driving. Not even close. I just got way more careful. Long story short, I've never had an alcohol related driving incident since. Or non-alcohol. Spotless driving record since 1983 and I've logged a lot of miles, more than few of them while technically over some limit or other. But not that many as my alcohol intake generally went down once I hit my twenties.
Speaking of which, I've driven at least a little high on marijuana a lot, pretty much all the time for a few decades, always with a roach in the ashtray in case of a traffic jam or whatever. All without incident, though I'm sure I got honked at a few times for driving too slow.
I also did a lot of LSD for a while, which I found only made me a better driver. So much so that I became the designated driver when such shenanigans were being pursued. Lots of long hauls, hours and hours of country roads and highways. When you're in the zone, you're in the zone. Though I should note, I was never that high, more of a microdose situation. I found LSD a pretty stern master. If I was feeling too giddy, it wouldn't let me anywhere near a piece of heavy machinery.
What's my point here? I don't know. Maybe just to dump more data into the conversation, suggest that none of this is simple. There's actual reality in all of its fuzziness and there's The Law (and its specificities). The two don't really have a lot in common but we have the latter because we need something to at least to begin to tame the former. If that means veteran cosmic drivers such as myself have to adjust their habits in order to help keep sloppy maniacs off the road, I guess that's the price one pays for choosing to hang out with other humans.
Finally, I'm sixty-five now and haven't driven in any form of intoxication (except for maybe a little residual marijuana) for at least a decade. Because I don't do the chemicals anymore and the DUI laws in my jurisdiction are rather strict (.05, last I looked), so why even think of risking it?
posted by philip-random at 10:25 AM on August 28 [7 favorites]
I appreciate the comments recognizing the impact of transit (or the lack) on drunk driving numbers, but I haven’t seen anyone addressing economic and social despair, which is a big reason why drunk drivers are drinking to excess in the first place.
Totally fix transit but Jesus fix housing, wages, health care access, and child care. I’m in a family of really poor people where everyone drinks for relief, and boy do they all need relief. Unfuck America for more Americans and watch people struggle less to make better choices.
posted by toodleydoodley at 10:37 AM on August 28 [16 favorites]
Totally fix transit but Jesus fix housing, wages, health care access, and child care. I’m in a family of really poor people where everyone drinks for relief, and boy do they all need relief. Unfuck America for more Americans and watch people struggle less to make better choices.
posted by toodleydoodley at 10:37 AM on August 28 [16 favorites]
So I spent most of the last twenty years a 3-10 walk from all the bars, clubs and restaurants I needed. When I bought a house in 2019 (a 30-45 minute walk, dark, and without sidewalks from all the clubs, bars, and restaurants), I had to come up with a different strategy on nights when I wanted to have a couple of drinks. I've long been a person that engineered rides to/took an Uber/ took the bus, and now I do all of those things mre often (I'm no longer on a convenient bus line which also sucks). I don't go out to the bar with my car. I either walk up town to take a car. I also do this in my hometown (which has given itself a "Beer City USA" title, despite being 1) not very walkable 2) lacking in public transportation 3) and deeply unwilling to surrender their cars in order to get shitfaced at a brewey 20 miles, two interestates and at least one curvy mountain road away. And the local tourism community which is currently banking on alcohol-related tourism is doing nothing to help this--no shuttles, no easy alternate means of transport, etc) I build in the cost of getting there/getting home into the cost of going out. Somestimes that makes it more appropriate to just not drink. Sometimes that makes it more reasonable to buy a bottle of wine and have a friend over.
Mostly what I've discovered in all of this is how much other people do not do those things. They do not take Ubers. They drive regardless, no matter how far. They would never dream of leaving a car. They give me shit for taking cars or getting rides. They assume that because I will not drink and drive I'm lazy or irresponsible or, hilariously, I can't handle my alcohol or that I'm (at 48) somehow not grown up enough to drink four beers like a normal person and hit the highway. Listen: I live in a mostly walkable college town with excellent public transit. The number of people I know who have gotten DUIs driving three blocks home is absolutely shocking to me.
I like to drink. I have a bunch of alcoholics in my family (mostly in grandparent generation). I know the risks. I remember the shame of grandfather getting a DUI when I was a kid. I have had friends die in accidents with drunk drivers. But I have ridden in cars I shouldn't have. Back when I was broke, at nineteen years old, I spent in the night in my car outside of a punk rock house show in Virginia because I was so scared to driving the hour or so home after two beers. It was maybe overkill. But you know what? I don't actually care.
We need to change the way we talk about this. We need better public transportation. We need more walkable communities. And maybe more than that we need a culture that does not perennially valorize people being able to handle it themselves. Like it's some kind of fucking heroism that you made it home after seven IPAs and didn't get pulled without have to do the weenie thing and call a car. Like that is nuts, right?
Anyway.
posted by thivaia at 10:39 AM on August 28 [23 favorites]
Mostly what I've discovered in all of this is how much other people do not do those things. They do not take Ubers. They drive regardless, no matter how far. They would never dream of leaving a car. They give me shit for taking cars or getting rides. They assume that because I will not drink and drive I'm lazy or irresponsible or, hilariously, I can't handle my alcohol or that I'm (at 48) somehow not grown up enough to drink four beers like a normal person and hit the highway. Listen: I live in a mostly walkable college town with excellent public transit. The number of people I know who have gotten DUIs driving three blocks home is absolutely shocking to me.
I like to drink. I have a bunch of alcoholics in my family (mostly in grandparent generation). I know the risks. I remember the shame of grandfather getting a DUI when I was a kid. I have had friends die in accidents with drunk drivers. But I have ridden in cars I shouldn't have. Back when I was broke, at nineteen years old, I spent in the night in my car outside of a punk rock house show in Virginia because I was so scared to driving the hour or so home after two beers. It was maybe overkill. But you know what? I don't actually care.
We need to change the way we talk about this. We need better public transportation. We need more walkable communities. And maybe more than that we need a culture that does not perennially valorize people being able to handle it themselves. Like it's some kind of fucking heroism that you made it home after seven IPAs and didn't get pulled without have to do the weenie thing and call a car. Like that is nuts, right?
Anyway.
posted by thivaia at 10:39 AM on August 28 [23 favorites]
I'm all for making society better, but:
Check back in to this thread in ten years, and the US will not have solved transit, economic and social despair, housing, wages, health care access or child care.
Maybe no targeted policy in any state or federally will have reduced the harm done by drunk drivers, either. I don't think that's a given.
posted by gurple at 10:44 AM on August 28 [5 favorites]
Check back in to this thread in ten years, and the US will not have solved transit, economic and social despair, housing, wages, health care access or child care.
Maybe no targeted policy in any state or federally will have reduced the harm done by drunk drivers, either. I don't think that's a given.
posted by gurple at 10:44 AM on August 28 [5 favorites]
I've rarely been more horrified at another person's behavior than when a newish acquaintance and budding friend drove me to dinner and then proceeded to have three drinks.No judgment, but ... if this is true, might I suggest that you have been lucky enough not to encounter much of the shitty, horrifying behavior ostensibly normal people demonstrate in public every day?
The videos jeremias posted are a useful demonstration that what number of drinks leads to intoxication is incredibly individual-/situation-dependent. You don't say whether your friend seemed drunk (obviously, if he did, it's a different story), but simply asserting "someone had three drinks and then drove me home" as though we should all recognize this person for the monster he is is ... a stretch.
posted by pwe at 10:51 AM on August 28 [9 favorites]
I still remember when I was working for an Australian Federal government department that had some road safety engineering works under its portfolio (level railway crossings)
and my (male, older, more senior) coworkers tried to pressure me to join them in having a glass or two of wine at 5pm on a Friday in the workplace (literally surrounded by cubicles, it was a "team building event" of Friday drinks organised by the boss.)
"No thanks, I'm driving home."
"Oh, we're driving home too, you'll be fine, it's only two or three drinks."
I held my ground, and they clearly thought I was very odd.
(I'm actually a life-long tea-totaller, but explaining that ruffles the feathers of most Australians too much.)
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 11:07 AM on August 28 [8 favorites]
and my (male, older, more senior) coworkers tried to pressure me to join them in having a glass or two of wine at 5pm on a Friday in the workplace (literally surrounded by cubicles, it was a "team building event" of Friday drinks organised by the boss.)
"No thanks, I'm driving home."
"Oh, we're driving home too, you'll be fine, it's only two or three drinks."
I held my ground, and they clearly thought I was very odd.
(I'm actually a life-long tea-totaller, but explaining that ruffles the feathers of most Australians too much.)
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 11:07 AM on August 28 [8 favorites]
The defensiveness in these kinds of threads is always funny to me.
I don’t drive ever, so it’s easy for me to say, but I think the appropriate standard is zero drinks. Driving a car while you’re stone cold sober, on a cloudless day, with perfect visibility, with no distractions is still something that could kill someone in a split second. It’s the most dangerous thing people do on a regular basis. Adding “just” one drink to that seems crazy to me. I get that the risk is normalized for people because they do it every day, but maybe it should be way less normalized.
posted by knobknosher at 11:10 AM on August 28 [24 favorites]
I don’t drive ever, so it’s easy for me to say, but I think the appropriate standard is zero drinks. Driving a car while you’re stone cold sober, on a cloudless day, with perfect visibility, with no distractions is still something that could kill someone in a split second. It’s the most dangerous thing people do on a regular basis. Adding “just” one drink to that seems crazy to me. I get that the risk is normalized for people because they do it every day, but maybe it should be way less normalized.
posted by knobknosher at 11:10 AM on August 28 [24 favorites]
Back when I worked dispatching tow trucks we had a regular customer who would call us from the Three Mile at closing time requesting a flat bed. He'd get his car and himself home by riding in front with our tow truck driver.
It seems to me that as a culture we are not good at assessing our own altered states and judging when we should not attempt to do things. I think a lot of people genuinely do not know when they are too drunk, or too tired, or too upset, or too zoned to drive, or have a conversation with another person, or make decisions, and I don't think there are many resources in place to help them figure that out.
In Montreal on New Years the public transit used to be free - I don't know if it still is, but I believe back in the day they also used to put extra overnight buses on the road just for that night.
And I remember also the custom of drinkers having a mascot, their designated driver that they would take out, and keep feeding all the bar food and coins for the arcade games they could possibly want until the bar closed. An amiable designated driver was prized, especially one that would make multiple trips - and the bars boasted of how many cars were left in their parking lots overnight.
posted by Jane the Brown at 11:20 AM on August 28 [6 favorites]
It seems to me that as a culture we are not good at assessing our own altered states and judging when we should not attempt to do things. I think a lot of people genuinely do not know when they are too drunk, or too tired, or too upset, or too zoned to drive, or have a conversation with another person, or make decisions, and I don't think there are many resources in place to help them figure that out.
In Montreal on New Years the public transit used to be free - I don't know if it still is, but I believe back in the day they also used to put extra overnight buses on the road just for that night.
And I remember also the custom of drinkers having a mascot, their designated driver that they would take out, and keep feeding all the bar food and coins for the arcade games they could possibly want until the bar closed. An amiable designated driver was prized, especially one that would make multiple trips - and the bars boasted of how many cars were left in their parking lots overnight.
posted by Jane the Brown at 11:20 AM on August 28 [6 favorites]
Oh man, do I have a lot of thoughts on this!
1. Blood alcohol limits are absolutely shitty and stupid without free breathalyzer tests in every establishment with a liquor permit. Not paid breathalyzer tests, free. You should be able to walk into a bathroom and privately assess your level of blood alcohol without having to pay 20$ to do so. It is a public health initiative and in the interest of society. I have no fucking clue why we don’t do this, unless the answer is “to fill the jails with the poor and because capitalism has an interest in charging people for every scrap”.
2. Levels of impairment are absolutely different for every person depending on their age, weight, history of alcohol consumption, metabolism, medical history, etc. I have seen alcoholics with eight drinks who are less impaired than casual drinkers with two. This is also compounded by the fact that drinks are largely non standardized; a whiskey and Coke in one bar may contain four shots and in another bar one shot. When you order it, you have no way of knowing what you are getting.
3. Without all-night public transportation and/or reasonably priced car service, it is unfair to judge the choices of the poor to drive while impaired. They are trying to make life or death calculations *while they are already impaired* that may mean things like “if I am safe, then I can’t pay the electric bill this month.” I recently paid for an Uber home for a veteran from a bar to avoid a similar situation: it was a fifteen minute drive to his house, which cost 75$. If he had needed to take an Uber back to the bar in the morning to get his car, that would have been another 75$.
4. “Just don’t drink” ignores the reality that we have a number of existing alcoholics in the United States, some of which literally cannot stop drinking without medical assistance without risking heart attacks and strokes. They absolutely should not be behind the wheel of any car, but we don’t have a robust social system to allow for their transportation, so many of them wind up driving. The rich ones take car service; middle class ones have family members drive them; the poor do not have these options. If they live in a city with good public transportation they may be able to take it; if not, they are fucked.
5. When you criminalize something, you aren’t necessarily stopping it, you are just sending people to jail when they violate it. Jail is a torture system that destroys the lives and mental health of families forever, and fascinatingly and ironically enough, it’s more expensive than paying for rehab would be. But of course we don’t have a mechanism in this country for paying for rehab. (In case anyone says you can get rehab in jail, let me assure you that you cannot). We would be far better off if we paid for rehabilitation for everyone with substance dependency in this country than jailing more people who drive over a .05 BAC.
posted by corb at 11:22 AM on August 28 [32 favorites]
1. Blood alcohol limits are absolutely shitty and stupid without free breathalyzer tests in every establishment with a liquor permit. Not paid breathalyzer tests, free. You should be able to walk into a bathroom and privately assess your level of blood alcohol without having to pay 20$ to do so. It is a public health initiative and in the interest of society. I have no fucking clue why we don’t do this, unless the answer is “to fill the jails with the poor and because capitalism has an interest in charging people for every scrap”.
2. Levels of impairment are absolutely different for every person depending on their age, weight, history of alcohol consumption, metabolism, medical history, etc. I have seen alcoholics with eight drinks who are less impaired than casual drinkers with two. This is also compounded by the fact that drinks are largely non standardized; a whiskey and Coke in one bar may contain four shots and in another bar one shot. When you order it, you have no way of knowing what you are getting.
3. Without all-night public transportation and/or reasonably priced car service, it is unfair to judge the choices of the poor to drive while impaired. They are trying to make life or death calculations *while they are already impaired* that may mean things like “if I am safe, then I can’t pay the electric bill this month.” I recently paid for an Uber home for a veteran from a bar to avoid a similar situation: it was a fifteen minute drive to his house, which cost 75$. If he had needed to take an Uber back to the bar in the morning to get his car, that would have been another 75$.
4. “Just don’t drink” ignores the reality that we have a number of existing alcoholics in the United States, some of which literally cannot stop drinking without medical assistance without risking heart attacks and strokes. They absolutely should not be behind the wheel of any car, but we don’t have a robust social system to allow for their transportation, so many of them wind up driving. The rich ones take car service; middle class ones have family members drive them; the poor do not have these options. If they live in a city with good public transportation they may be able to take it; if not, they are fucked.
5. When you criminalize something, you aren’t necessarily stopping it, you are just sending people to jail when they violate it. Jail is a torture system that destroys the lives and mental health of families forever, and fascinatingly and ironically enough, it’s more expensive than paying for rehab would be. But of course we don’t have a mechanism in this country for paying for rehab. (In case anyone says you can get rehab in jail, let me assure you that you cannot). We would be far better off if we paid for rehabilitation for everyone with substance dependency in this country than jailing more people who drive over a .05 BAC.
posted by corb at 11:22 AM on August 28 [32 favorites]
I think .08 is reasonable. Stats I saw some years ago showed accident rate vs BAC and .08 was already kind of on the long tail of the graph. We allow plenty of elderly folks on the road who are functioning at a significantly worse level than someone who is mildly impaired by alcohol...
posted by Larry David Syndrome at 11:26 AM on August 28 [6 favorites]
posted by Larry David Syndrome at 11:26 AM on August 28 [6 favorites]
I might be misremembering things, but I seem to recall that drinking and driving was far more socially tolerated as late as the 1980s than it is today. People used to joke about how they didn’t remember how they got home; they don’t do that now.
In many parts of Canada, where I live, public transportation alternatives are non-existent, especially in more rural areas. Everyone is driving everywhere. (I’m grateful that I live in Toronto and don’t need a car, so I’m not tempted to drink and drive.)
posted by tallmiddleagedgeek at 11:34 AM on August 28 [4 favorites]
In many parts of Canada, where I live, public transportation alternatives are non-existent, especially in more rural areas. Everyone is driving everywhere. (I’m grateful that I live in Toronto and don’t need a car, so I’m not tempted to drink and drive.)
posted by tallmiddleagedgeek at 11:34 AM on August 28 [4 favorites]
They once did a breathalyzer FYI night at the local bar so people could get a sense of where they were at. My buddy an average sized guy and a decent drinker dead eyed the cop and said “in no universe am I ok to drive right now” and he STILL BLEW UNDER. I was the DD that night so of course I was fine but we were all stunned at how bad that thing was. No body eyeballing my friend that night would have allowed him behind a wheel of even a tricycle.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 11:35 AM on August 28 [4 favorites]
posted by St. Peepsburg at 11:35 AM on August 28 [4 favorites]
Fair warning, the videos are a marketing tool and little too glib for my liking, but they are fascinating: most people really have no idea how to gauge their current level of impairment. A person's weight, how much (and what) they had to eat that day, their genetic disposition: all these (and more) are variables that complicate things quickly.
In reality there’s also a fair amount of variability in how impaired someone actually is at a given BAC (see the people who are alive or awake or occasionally caught driving at 0.5 or higher) but it’s hard to apply that practically to law enforcement, obviously.
0.08 is definitely a weirdly high bar for the average person, though. Like three or four drinks in an hour, seems pretty intuitively bad idea territory to me, not just “you’re more impaired than you may realize.”
posted by atoxyl at 11:37 AM on August 28
In reality there’s also a fair amount of variability in how impaired someone actually is at a given BAC (see the people who are alive or awake or occasionally caught driving at 0.5 or higher) but it’s hard to apply that practically to law enforcement, obviously.
0.08 is definitely a weirdly high bar for the average person, though. Like three or four drinks in an hour, seems pretty intuitively bad idea territory to me, not just “you’re more impaired than you may realize.”
posted by atoxyl at 11:37 AM on August 28
Another layer to consider:
Moderate sleep deprivation produces impairments in cognitive and motor performance equivalent to legally prescribed levels of alcohol intoxication
posted by brook horse at 11:37 AM on August 28 [17 favorites]
Moderate sleep deprivation produces impairments in cognitive and motor performance equivalent to legally prescribed levels of alcohol intoxication
After 17-19 hours without sleep, corresponding to 2230 and 0100, performance on some tests was equivalent or worse than that at a BAC of 0.05%. Response speeds were up to 50% slower for some tests and accuracy measures were significantly poorer than at this level of alcohol. After longer periods without sleep, performance reached levels equivalent to the maximum alcohol dose given to subjects (BAC of 0.1%).So if you get up at 5am and drive home at 10pm, that could be a similar driving impairment to having a drink.
posted by brook horse at 11:37 AM on August 28 [17 favorites]
Have you been on a bus in any large metropolitan city lately.
Literally posting from one right now. I take one pretty much every day, actually, as I don't own any kind of private vehicle. This is a glorious state of affairs for me, and I hate that it is so wildly unaffordable that even my friends and I, with our quite decent middle-class salaries, are barely able to cling to it.
Anyway I maintain, and I think it is uncontroversial generally on this site, that when the punishment for something is exclusively or largely financial then we're quite simply declaring it legal for rich people, and that drunk driving enforcement is no different.
Without addressing the many many structural issues at play it seems likely that instead of really improving the situation we will simply punish more people, which may or may not reduce vehicle crashes but will definitely result in a cascade of other harms as more people of lesser means are fed into the abominable legal system.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 11:40 AM on August 28 [27 favorites]
Literally posting from one right now. I take one pretty much every day, actually, as I don't own any kind of private vehicle. This is a glorious state of affairs for me, and I hate that it is so wildly unaffordable that even my friends and I, with our quite decent middle-class salaries, are barely able to cling to it.
Anyway I maintain, and I think it is uncontroversial generally on this site, that when the punishment for something is exclusively or largely financial then we're quite simply declaring it legal for rich people, and that drunk driving enforcement is no different.
Without addressing the many many structural issues at play it seems likely that instead of really improving the situation we will simply punish more people, which may or may not reduce vehicle crashes but will definitely result in a cascade of other harms as more people of lesser means are fed into the abominable legal system.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 11:40 AM on August 28 [27 favorites]
clew's article on the absolute criticality of driving in rural places and and the comments about other kinds of impairment are a good reminder of one of the boons of accessible infrastructure: designing for people who can never do The Thing makes life so much better for everyone who temporarily, for whatever reason, cannot do The Thing.
posted by McBearclaw at 11:40 AM on August 28 [15 favorites]
posted by McBearclaw at 11:40 AM on August 28 [15 favorites]
[I drove drunk my entire youth and into middle age without issue. Why do I post this info?] Maybe just to dump more data into the conversation, suggest that none of this is simple.
Snurk. That you were average lucky and didn't have the statistically very unlikely experience of plowing into a vanful of toddlers while drunkenly joyriding through your life is "more data" that should give us pause because "none of this is simple." Uh-huuuuuh. Hey, but you know what is some simple data that does add value to this? What got you to cut that shit out was strict DUI laws.
posted by Don Pepino at 11:41 AM on August 28 [3 favorites]
Snurk. That you were average lucky and didn't have the statistically very unlikely experience of plowing into a vanful of toddlers while drunkenly joyriding through your life is "more data" that should give us pause because "none of this is simple." Uh-huuuuuh. Hey, but you know what is some simple data that does add value to this? What got you to cut that shit out was strict DUI laws.
posted by Don Pepino at 11:41 AM on August 28 [3 favorites]
Impaired driving is an inescapable part of personal automobile transport.
People work late at the office until they start messing up their spreadsheet/document, etc. And, after determining themselves unfit to drive a keyboard, decide to operate heavy machinery at high speed through populated areas.
Cars will never make sense. Extreme penalties won’t make cars make sense.
posted by Headfullofair at 11:52 AM on August 28 [11 favorites]
People work late at the office until they start messing up their spreadsheet/document, etc. And, after determining themselves unfit to drive a keyboard, decide to operate heavy machinery at high speed through populated areas.
Cars will never make sense. Extreme penalties won’t make cars make sense.
posted by Headfullofair at 11:52 AM on August 28 [11 favorites]
[I drove drunk my entire youth and into middle age without issue. Why do I post this info?] Maybe just to dump more data into the conversation, suggest that none of this is simple.
Don Pepino, you have added your own editorializing to my original words and presented such as a coherent, accurate statement [with brackets but they're not in the right place]. Are you drunk? For the record, I did not drive drunk my entire youth. I did drive over the legal limit more than I should have age 17-20 when I still lived in a spread out suburban area with no transit options past maybe 8pm. I'm not proud of this. It is a data point.
As for this part ...
What got you to cut that shit out was strict DUI laws.
I guess, but not really. The real changer was choosing not to own a car for chunk of time. This got me to rearrange my life in a non-car-centric way. Which bluntly, is what I think we need. it needs to be WAY easier for people to live and work and play in a non-car-centric way ... as many have already pointed out.
posted by philip-random at 11:57 AM on August 28 [12 favorites]
Don Pepino, you have added your own editorializing to my original words and presented such as a coherent, accurate statement [with brackets but they're not in the right place]. Are you drunk? For the record, I did not drive drunk my entire youth. I did drive over the legal limit more than I should have age 17-20 when I still lived in a spread out suburban area with no transit options past maybe 8pm. I'm not proud of this. It is a data point.
As for this part ...
What got you to cut that shit out was strict DUI laws.
I guess, but not really. The real changer was choosing not to own a car for chunk of time. This got me to rearrange my life in a non-car-centric way. Which bluntly, is what I think we need. it needs to be WAY easier for people to live and work and play in a non-car-centric way ... as many have already pointed out.
posted by philip-random at 11:57 AM on August 28 [12 favorites]
ochswar: The people who use public transit as their solution are... usually also responsible enough not to get 3 sheets to the wind.
Counterpoint: every kid I knew in college in Boston, running sloppily down Harvard Ave. like hell for the last outbound T trolley of the night -- and weaving all over the Allston sidewalks.
We certainly would have stayed out later (still drinking) if we'd had a ride, but we used our cab money for more drinks and so we had to catch the trolley where it was free.
posted by wenestvedt at 11:58 AM on August 28 [8 favorites]
Counterpoint: every kid I knew in college in Boston, running sloppily down Harvard Ave. like hell for the last outbound T trolley of the night -- and weaving all over the Allston sidewalks.
We certainly would have stayed out later (still drinking) if we'd had a ride, but we used our cab money for more drinks and so we had to catch the trolley where it was free.
posted by wenestvedt at 11:58 AM on August 28 [8 favorites]
it needs to be WAY easier for people to live and work and play in a non-car-centric way
Well, that is for damn sure.
posted by Don Pepino at 12:00 PM on August 28 [2 favorites]
Well, that is for damn sure.
posted by Don Pepino at 12:00 PM on August 28 [2 favorites]
Without all-night public transportation and/or reasonably priced car service, it is unfair to judge the choices of the poor to drive while impaired. They are trying to make life or death calculations *while they are already impaired* that may mean things like “if I am safe, then I can’t pay the electric bill this month.”
And as someone who was broke as hell with a DUI, guess what happened? I was always too broke to catch up on my rent/utilities because I had to pay a huge fine with interest. Guess who else was in the waiting room with me to pay our fines? It wasn't people who could pay it flat out and go on with their lives.
Here's the sting: those "choices" cost poor people a lot more. So you have: drive home drunk and hope the cops don't flag you, or get caught and now you are in even more debt than before. Again: ask me how I know.
posted by Kitteh at 12:08 PM on August 28 [7 favorites]
And as someone who was broke as hell with a DUI, guess what happened? I was always too broke to catch up on my rent/utilities because I had to pay a huge fine with interest. Guess who else was in the waiting room with me to pay our fines? It wasn't people who could pay it flat out and go on with their lives.
Here's the sting: those "choices" cost poor people a lot more. So you have: drive home drunk and hope the cops don't flag you, or get caught and now you are in even more debt than before. Again: ask me how I know.
posted by Kitteh at 12:08 PM on August 28 [7 favorites]
America arn't going to abandon their love affair with their automobiles and just hop on a city bus anytime soon. Have you been on a bus in any large metropolitan city lately. It ain't pretty.
I have been doing all my commuting and travel for the past 15 months via mobility scooter, city bus, and, for travel, trains. I don't know how many hundreds of trips I've taken on my local transit in that time. I've had maybe three bad experiences on the bus, and this is in a rust belt city with a wrecked economy and a high crime rate. I routinely catch the bus after work just as a whole bunch of homeless men are getting on downtown in order to get to the shelter during the 25-minute window when one can get in for dinner and a bed. I routinely am on the bus with a person who is impaired either by alcohol or (based on their smell) weed. They're usually pretty quiet; they fall asleep a lot.
When I travel by train, I have ended up with long layovers in Chicago, Omaha, Albany, and Philadelphia, to name a few. I have taken buses in all these places without having any bad experiences with other passengers. The Transit app makes this very easy--I use it at home, and whenever I'm in another city, it just hooks up to the local transit system and tells you what route to take to get to your destination.
The buses I've been on have all been clean, and the bus drivers have been at least competent, if not friendly. Some of the buses I've taken in Chicago and Albany have really good video displays of where you are and what stops are upcoming. It's pretty easy to navigate.
One of the uncomfortable situations I've experienced on the bus did have to do with an impaired person, but we were all more afraid for him than of him, after he tumbled, asleep, out of his seat on a sharp turn and didn't wake up as he ended up on the floor.
It's easy to be afraid of the things that might happen on buses, and that certainly do happen sometimes. But in my fairly extensive experience, they mostly don't. And alluding to that risk is part of what keeps Americans unwilling to use the transit that's available to them, or to commit to building more.
posted by Well I never at 12:10 PM on August 28 [27 favorites]
I have been doing all my commuting and travel for the past 15 months via mobility scooter, city bus, and, for travel, trains. I don't know how many hundreds of trips I've taken on my local transit in that time. I've had maybe three bad experiences on the bus, and this is in a rust belt city with a wrecked economy and a high crime rate. I routinely catch the bus after work just as a whole bunch of homeless men are getting on downtown in order to get to the shelter during the 25-minute window when one can get in for dinner and a bed. I routinely am on the bus with a person who is impaired either by alcohol or (based on their smell) weed. They're usually pretty quiet; they fall asleep a lot.
When I travel by train, I have ended up with long layovers in Chicago, Omaha, Albany, and Philadelphia, to name a few. I have taken buses in all these places without having any bad experiences with other passengers. The Transit app makes this very easy--I use it at home, and whenever I'm in another city, it just hooks up to the local transit system and tells you what route to take to get to your destination.
The buses I've been on have all been clean, and the bus drivers have been at least competent, if not friendly. Some of the buses I've taken in Chicago and Albany have really good video displays of where you are and what stops are upcoming. It's pretty easy to navigate.
One of the uncomfortable situations I've experienced on the bus did have to do with an impaired person, but we were all more afraid for him than of him, after he tumbled, asleep, out of his seat on a sharp turn and didn't wake up as he ended up on the floor.
It's easy to be afraid of the things that might happen on buses, and that certainly do happen sometimes. But in my fairly extensive experience, they mostly don't. And alluding to that risk is part of what keeps Americans unwilling to use the transit that's available to them, or to commit to building more.
posted by Well I never at 12:10 PM on August 28 [27 favorites]
This thread is so insulting to poor people, lmao. Fines should not be flat fines and the criminal justice system is abhorrent. But some of y’all talk about poor people like they’re another species. It’s very Victorian.
It’s also the case that in a lot of places, pedestrians—often poor or disabled—are at very high risk from shitty drivers. Same with shift workers headed home at 4am when everyone gets let out of the bar.
People shouldn’t drive sleep impaired. That should be part of a general cultural shift that treats driving while at all impaired as wrong. High BALs go in the opposite direction.
posted by knobknosher at 12:22 PM on August 28 [9 favorites]
It’s also the case that in a lot of places, pedestrians—often poor or disabled—are at very high risk from shitty drivers. Same with shift workers headed home at 4am when everyone gets let out of the bar.
People shouldn’t drive sleep impaired. That should be part of a general cultural shift that treats driving while at all impaired as wrong. High BALs go in the opposite direction.
posted by knobknosher at 12:22 PM on August 28 [9 favorites]
So, when I was in the Army, it was really important to the United States Government that soldiers not get DUIs, because they had invested a lot of money in their training, and they didn’t want to lose that money to jailing the soldiers. So the Army had their duty officers and noncommissioned officers have a van, that could pick up any drunk soldier from any location and drive them back to their car in the morning, at no cost, no questions asked. And it worked pretty well! Soldiers used it. The incidence of DUIs was staggeringly low. Because all in all, people don’t *like* driving drunk, and would *prefer* to get a ride when they have the option.
But the United States Government doesn’t offer that for everyone, because it doesn’t consider all of its people equally valuable members of society. But from a public health consideration, it probably should, because everyone deserves not to be jailed and everyone deserves to be able to try to stay safe.
posted by corb at 12:25 PM on August 28 [23 favorites]
But the United States Government doesn’t offer that for everyone, because it doesn’t consider all of its people equally valuable members of society. But from a public health consideration, it probably should, because everyone deserves not to be jailed and everyone deserves to be able to try to stay safe.
posted by corb at 12:25 PM on August 28 [23 favorites]
Yeah my thought on the sleep impairment is if you're out late you're already impaired, and then drinking impairs even further. Public transportation addresses all kinds of impairment, while BAC limits only address one angle. But it's easier to get more money for police enforcement than for public goods, that's for sure. :/
posted by brook horse at 12:30 PM on August 28 [7 favorites]
posted by brook horse at 12:30 PM on August 28 [7 favorites]
There's also the general destruction of the concept of the "local bar" in most of the US. I live in MN and I can walk to my bar in about 7 minutes. But also it is not a place I go get drunk, it's a place you stop after work to have a single drink, chat with some people, sit outside under an umbrella and play pinball. If I'm even remotely unsure about being sober I can walk home and pick my car up later.
That's not a thing most places have; social third spaces for adults are usually distant and require getting on a major arterial road. Part of this is how housing and commercial spaces are treated as needing to be completely separated in modern development. If every cloistered little suburban tract had a centralized bar we'd probably be a lot better off but that might damage property values!
posted by Ferreous at 12:32 PM on August 28 [15 favorites]
That's not a thing most places have; social third spaces for adults are usually distant and require getting on a major arterial road. Part of this is how housing and commercial spaces are treated as needing to be completely separated in modern development. If every cloistered little suburban tract had a centralized bar we'd probably be a lot better off but that might damage property values!
posted by Ferreous at 12:32 PM on August 28 [15 favorites]
Have you been on a bus in any large metropolitan city lately. It ain't pretty.
I live in Chicago and take the bus all the time, day and night. Sometimes it's literally pretty. We have some nice scenery. And I've taken buses all over the US for decades.
Occasionally there's someone who's intoxicated or otherwise annoying, but usually they're just taking up more than one seat or playing their music too loud, not doing anything violent. I don't think I've ever seen a violent crime on a city bus. Obviously they do happen, but I'm a frequent passenger and haven't seen one.
The bottom line is I feel infinitely safer and calmer taking the bus in the city than I do driving in the suburbs, where the roads are full of impatient, distracted people driving aggressively. I think sometimes when people say this it comes off like a contrarian, "but actually" kind of take, but it really is just my experience. Motorists, especially since the pandemic, are way more belligerent and dangerously unpredictable than bus passengers anywhere that I'm aware of and it's not even close.
I've known suburbanites in particular who are wary of the bus because they're wary of poor people. But in my experience, when you take the bus in places where mostly poor people take the bus, it's just full of exhausted people trying to get somewhere.
If every cloistered little suburban tract had a centralized bar we'd probably be a lot better off but that might damage property values!
Yes, agreed, especially if it had no parking and easy sidewalk access. Incidentally, another place people behave better than behind the wheel is in the bar. Imagine running through a crowded bar, weaving through the crowd, honking a horn and giving people the finger to get your drink before anyone else.
posted by smelendez at 12:37 PM on August 28 [15 favorites]
I live in Chicago and take the bus all the time, day and night. Sometimes it's literally pretty. We have some nice scenery. And I've taken buses all over the US for decades.
Occasionally there's someone who's intoxicated or otherwise annoying, but usually they're just taking up more than one seat or playing their music too loud, not doing anything violent. I don't think I've ever seen a violent crime on a city bus. Obviously they do happen, but I'm a frequent passenger and haven't seen one.
The bottom line is I feel infinitely safer and calmer taking the bus in the city than I do driving in the suburbs, where the roads are full of impatient, distracted people driving aggressively. I think sometimes when people say this it comes off like a contrarian, "but actually" kind of take, but it really is just my experience. Motorists, especially since the pandemic, are way more belligerent and dangerously unpredictable than bus passengers anywhere that I'm aware of and it's not even close.
I've known suburbanites in particular who are wary of the bus because they're wary of poor people. But in my experience, when you take the bus in places where mostly poor people take the bus, it's just full of exhausted people trying to get somewhere.
If every cloistered little suburban tract had a centralized bar we'd probably be a lot better off but that might damage property values!
Yes, agreed, especially if it had no parking and easy sidewalk access. Incidentally, another place people behave better than behind the wheel is in the bar. Imagine running through a crowded bar, weaving through the crowd, honking a horn and giving people the finger to get your drink before anyone else.
posted by smelendez at 12:37 PM on August 28 [15 favorites]
First off, this is a long-term and deep seated problem with the clash of modern day driving culture and drinking culture which goes back way before cars (obviously). No solution is going to be simple. It's going to take some large cultural effort to remove or even reduce it significantly.
It is much more tough on the poor, much like other law enforcement interactions are for them in general. I didn't see anyone posting otherwise.
Back when I still drank, when we were in some small town/distant suburb drinking, more often than not there was a local who would act as a taxi service that would cart you back to your house/campsite/cabin/hut for a nominal fee. It isn't anything approaching a solution, but at this point I'm forced to think in terms of harm reduction.
posted by Sphinx at 12:38 PM on August 28 [3 favorites]
It is much more tough on the poor, much like other law enforcement interactions are for them in general. I didn't see anyone posting otherwise.
Back when I still drank, when we were in some small town/distant suburb drinking, more often than not there was a local who would act as a taxi service that would cart you back to your house/campsite/cabin/hut for a nominal fee. It isn't anything approaching a solution, but at this point I'm forced to think in terms of harm reduction.
posted by Sphinx at 12:38 PM on August 28 [3 favorites]
Similar charts are easily found in a Google search.
Good lord, according to one of those I'd need five drinks to hit .08 BAC. That's insane, I'd be stumbling drunk by that point! I'd be lucky to make it to the car, let alone drive it.
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:40 PM on August 28 [2 favorites]
Good lord, according to one of those I'd need five drinks to hit .08 BAC. That's insane, I'd be stumbling drunk by that point! I'd be lucky to make it to the car, let alone drive it.
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:40 PM on August 28 [2 favorites]
The crazy one about how much people won't give up their cars is the NFL.
NFL teams have driver programs available for the players - no questions asked, get a ride. Just like corb's example of the US Army, the NFL teams have invested tons of cash and time into the individual players so it's in their absolute interest to avoid DUIs that will get them suspended, booted, jailed, etc (and the PR nightmare that happens)
And yet, this still happens. (Though by some accounting the NFL has a DUI arrest rate of 1 in 300 players and supposedly the rate amongst the general population is 1 in 222 licensed drivers.
posted by drewbage1847 at 12:40 PM on August 28 [4 favorites]
NFL teams have driver programs available for the players - no questions asked, get a ride. Just like corb's example of the US Army, the NFL teams have invested tons of cash and time into the individual players so it's in their absolute interest to avoid DUIs that will get them suspended, booted, jailed, etc (and the PR nightmare that happens)
And yet, this still happens. (Though by some accounting the NFL has a DUI arrest rate of 1 in 300 players and supposedly the rate amongst the general population is 1 in 222 licensed drivers.
posted by drewbage1847 at 12:40 PM on August 28 [4 favorites]
What about the idea of having people applying for licenses play a driving video game, and making a record so they can see how their ability deteriorates, drink by drink? I realize that wouldn't affect everyone-- to see the video record later when sober-- but in should influence the people who can't tell they're driving badly when they're drunk because they're drunk.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 12:44 PM on August 28 [2 favorites]
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 12:44 PM on August 28 [2 favorites]
Modern cars already come with many safety features. It would be absolutely trivial to build in a breathalyzer interlock device, which would prevent the car from starting until the driver took a breathalyzer that blew either at zero or below a preset limit, as an additional safety measure. These devices are currently used in some (most?) states for people who have DUII's, but there's no reason they couldn't be standard equipment on all vehicles sold in the US.
Does this solve any of the underlying, foundational problems in society re: alcohol abuse and driving? Nope! But it might be a quick and easy way to prevent people from driving under the influence while society continues to either work on or kick the can down the road on those problems.
posted by pdb at 1:09 PM on August 28 [2 favorites]
Does this solve any of the underlying, foundational problems in society re: alcohol abuse and driving? Nope! But it might be a quick and easy way to prevent people from driving under the influence while society continues to either work on or kick the can down the road on those problems.
posted by pdb at 1:09 PM on August 28 [2 favorites]
America arn't going to abandon their love affair with their automobiles and just hop on a city bus anytime soon. Have you been on a bus in any large metropolitan city lately. It ain't pretty.
Others have already pushed back but this deserves more pushback. Not only is this attitude unhelpful, it's actively harmful. It's harmful because it perpetuates negative stereotypes against public transit, which leads to fewer riders and less funding. It's harmful because it perpetuates the idea that there's no real alternative to cars, which is absolutely untrue and proven so by the lived experience of millions of us who have reduced or eliminated their dependence on cars thanks in whole or part to public transit. It's harmful because it's rhetorically adjacent to right-wing nonsense about how Democrats have turned blue cities into crime-ridden hellholes, a viewpoint which (like this one) is contrary to the actual experience of most of us living in those cities.
If you live in or near a major city with public transit and you are not making that public transit part of your strategy for navigating and interacting with your city, you are probably missing out. You're probably spending too much on cars, for one thing, and you're probably contributing to congestion and pollution if you're instead relying solely on cars. And if your public transit is overcrowded, or dirty, or full of rowdy passengers, there's an excellent chance it's not being funded properly, and if it's not being funded properly, it's probably due at least in part to the clueless folks who wander around saying stuff like, have you been on the bus lately, it ain't pretty, better stick to cars.
posted by Two unicycles and some duct tape at 1:23 PM on August 28 [15 favorites]
Others have already pushed back but this deserves more pushback. Not only is this attitude unhelpful, it's actively harmful. It's harmful because it perpetuates negative stereotypes against public transit, which leads to fewer riders and less funding. It's harmful because it perpetuates the idea that there's no real alternative to cars, which is absolutely untrue and proven so by the lived experience of millions of us who have reduced or eliminated their dependence on cars thanks in whole or part to public transit. It's harmful because it's rhetorically adjacent to right-wing nonsense about how Democrats have turned blue cities into crime-ridden hellholes, a viewpoint which (like this one) is contrary to the actual experience of most of us living in those cities.
If you live in or near a major city with public transit and you are not making that public transit part of your strategy for navigating and interacting with your city, you are probably missing out. You're probably spending too much on cars, for one thing, and you're probably contributing to congestion and pollution if you're instead relying solely on cars. And if your public transit is overcrowded, or dirty, or full of rowdy passengers, there's an excellent chance it's not being funded properly, and if it's not being funded properly, it's probably due at least in part to the clueless folks who wander around saying stuff like, have you been on the bus lately, it ain't pretty, better stick to cars.
posted by Two unicycles and some duct tape at 1:23 PM on August 28 [15 favorites]
Mod note: A few comments above deleted, let's avoid having one-on-one discussions with specific members.
posted by loup (staff) at 1:40 PM on August 28
posted by loup (staff) at 1:40 PM on August 28
0.08 is definitely a weirdly high bar for the average person, though. Like three or four drinks in an hour, seems pretty intuitively bad idea territory to me, not just “you’re more impaired than you may realize.”
Having briefly worked in a place where a lot of DUIs came through, my understanding is that there's some leniency baked into this--where if you're a one-off or occasional tipsy driver, you'll likely never get caught. But if you're really knocking back a lot of drinks regularly and then driving, when you do get caught, it will be assumed that you do indeed drive drunk regularly and that you have a serious problem.
I used to think it was nonsensical that one instance of a DUI would have court-mandated AA meeting attendance as part of a sentencing package, but then there's some statistic about how for every DUI that's caught, there are 100 more that weren't. It's rarely a person's first-ever drunk driving experience when they get charged.
This has also made me extremely paranoid about driving late at night or in the early morning hours--just imagining that a significant proportion of the cars on the road have an impaired driver is really scary.
posted by knotty knots at 1:43 PM on August 28 [3 favorites]
Having briefly worked in a place where a lot of DUIs came through, my understanding is that there's some leniency baked into this--where if you're a one-off or occasional tipsy driver, you'll likely never get caught. But if you're really knocking back a lot of drinks regularly and then driving, when you do get caught, it will be assumed that you do indeed drive drunk regularly and that you have a serious problem.
I used to think it was nonsensical that one instance of a DUI would have court-mandated AA meeting attendance as part of a sentencing package, but then there's some statistic about how for every DUI that's caught, there are 100 more that weren't. It's rarely a person's first-ever drunk driving experience when they get charged.
This has also made me extremely paranoid about driving late at night or in the early morning hours--just imagining that a significant proportion of the cars on the road have an impaired driver is really scary.
posted by knotty knots at 1:43 PM on August 28 [3 favorites]
Just adding a data point to this discussion that may seem unrelated but is actually definitely related: I'm currently undergoing a round of physical therapy related to a long-term chronic illness. EVERYTHING to do with physical therapy is operating under the assumption that 1. you were injured in a car wreck and 2. you need to sue someone over it. The insurance folks immediately wanted to know about our wreck (none, if there was one that's responsible it happened in 1997) and there was a ton of wreck-related paperwork to fill out at the therapy office.
I know that's mostly to do with our car-centric culture but drunk-driving is tied up closely with car-centricity and causes a bunch of those wrecks.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 1:51 PM on August 28 [8 favorites]
I know that's mostly to do with our car-centric culture but drunk-driving is tied up closely with car-centricity and causes a bunch of those wrecks.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 1:51 PM on August 28 [8 favorites]
In New Zealand the blood alcohol limit is 50 mg alcohol per 100 mL of blood (I suspect this is what the Americans are calling .05 but I don't trust y'all not to be expressing yours in freedom units).
If you're under 20 years old, the blood alcohol limit is zero, the breath alcohol limit is zero, if you have had one drink you should not be driving, and if you test higher than 30 mg/100mL (or 150 micrograms per litre of breath) you can be disqualified and also go to jail. I feel the need to clarify that our drinking laws include 'parents and guardians can supply alcohol to their child/ward and give consent for other people to supply alcohol to their child/ward, at any age, but you have to be 18 to buy your own', so it's not necessarily illegal for a 16 year old with a learner license to be drunk.
If you're over 20, the breath alcohol limit is 250 micrograms per litre of breath and the 'jail/disqualify' limit is 400 micrograms per litre of breath or 80 mg per 100 mL of blood.
We also tend to express things in terms of breath alcohol testing because that's much more common; usually you'll only take a blood test after you've
a) been stopped, either at a checkpoint or for driving like an idiot
b) refused or failed a passive breath screening test ('please say your name and address in the general direction of the device')
and c) refused or failed an evidential breath test ('please blow into this tube, the result of this test can be used in court')
Refusing everything until you get a blood test is a known strategy to give yourself more time to metabolize the alcohol and get a lower reading, but I gotta say, if you can see the booze bus on the side of the road, you are getting your blood test within 15 minutes of refusing the first breath test, so the benefit's pretty minimal.
I have not driven drunk (I don't like driving), I have bicycled through a checkpoint and demanded to be breathalyzed like all the car drivers (cop very confused), I have worked on alcohol checkpoints with cops, and in the course of the latter I have been nearly run over by a drunk driver who mistook me for a road cone.
posted by ngaiotonga at 1:55 PM on August 28 [4 favorites]
If you're under 20 years old, the blood alcohol limit is zero, the breath alcohol limit is zero, if you have had one drink you should not be driving, and if you test higher than 30 mg/100mL (or 150 micrograms per litre of breath) you can be disqualified and also go to jail. I feel the need to clarify that our drinking laws include 'parents and guardians can supply alcohol to their child/ward and give consent for other people to supply alcohol to their child/ward, at any age, but you have to be 18 to buy your own', so it's not necessarily illegal for a 16 year old with a learner license to be drunk.
If you're over 20, the breath alcohol limit is 250 micrograms per litre of breath and the 'jail/disqualify' limit is 400 micrograms per litre of breath or 80 mg per 100 mL of blood.
We also tend to express things in terms of breath alcohol testing because that's much more common; usually you'll only take a blood test after you've
a) been stopped, either at a checkpoint or for driving like an idiot
b) refused or failed a passive breath screening test ('please say your name and address in the general direction of the device')
and c) refused or failed an evidential breath test ('please blow into this tube, the result of this test can be used in court')
Refusing everything until you get a blood test is a known strategy to give yourself more time to metabolize the alcohol and get a lower reading, but I gotta say, if you can see the booze bus on the side of the road, you are getting your blood test within 15 minutes of refusing the first breath test, so the benefit's pretty minimal.
I have not driven drunk (I don't like driving), I have bicycled through a checkpoint and demanded to be breathalyzed like all the car drivers (cop very confused), I have worked on alcohol checkpoints with cops, and in the course of the latter I have been nearly run over by a drunk driver who mistook me for a road cone.
posted by ngaiotonga at 1:55 PM on August 28 [4 favorites]
also in the course of working alcohol checkpoints (at an afterparty) I found out that when I feel too impaired to drive safely, I still register zero breath alcohol. A coworker was actively trying to blow 400, and after 14 beers in two hours, feeling too impaired to do much other than sit down and wait for the room to stop spinning, he blew 240, which isn't even enough to get you a ticket.
posted by ngaiotonga at 1:58 PM on August 28 [1 favorite]
posted by ngaiotonga at 1:58 PM on August 28 [1 favorite]
Modern cars already come with many safety features. It would be absolutely trivial to build in a breathalyzer interlock device, which would prevent the car from starting until the driver took a breathalyzer that blew either at zero or below a preset limit, as an additional safety measure.
Once again, like so many things, the problem is money. Such features are both expensive (making new cars cost more) and will only be applied to newish cars. As a public defender, I have seen people fail their DUI compliance because they couldn’t afford to install the units in their cars. Capitalism is a hell of a drug.
Our society needs to decide if it is more interested in punishing people for their perceived sin, or saving lives, and act accordingly.
posted by corb at 2:27 PM on August 28 [6 favorites]
Once again, like so many things, the problem is money. Such features are both expensive (making new cars cost more) and will only be applied to newish cars. As a public defender, I have seen people fail their DUI compliance because they couldn’t afford to install the units in their cars. Capitalism is a hell of a drug.
Our society needs to decide if it is more interested in punishing people for their perceived sin, or saving lives, and act accordingly.
posted by corb at 2:27 PM on August 28 [6 favorites]
- I seem to recall that drinking and driving was far more socially tolerated as late as the 1980s than it is today.
In the US, Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD, founded 1980 as Mothers Against Drunk Drivers [name change in 1984]; 1983 TV biopic starring Mariette Hartley as MADD founder Candy Lightner), state and federal task forces, the Uniform Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 (which "Prohibits the Secretary of Transportation from approving Federal-aid highway projects in States in which the purchase or public possession of alcoholic beverages by persons less than 21 years of age" effectively raised the legal drinking age; MADD had successfully lobbied to tie the bill to funding), campaigns & public service announcements (in 1983, the Ad Council partnered with the US gov't for the "Drinking & Driving Can Kill A Friendship" campaign; Stevie Wonder's "Don't Drive Drunk" appeared on 1984's The Woman in Red soundtrack; the 1985 Department of Transportation PSA featuring Wonder's song; DOT's smashing "When friends don't stop friends from driving drunk... friends die" PSA; etc.) '80s/'90s state-level changes to BAC limits, and increased media coverage (Wayne's World: "Drunk Driving PSA", SNL, 1990), meant that by "the early 1990s, attitudes had matured; designated drivers were appearing in movies, and the MADD tagline “Friends don’t let friends drive drunk”... gets referenced in this scene in 1993's Groundhog Day.
posted by Iris Gambol at 2:31 PM on August 28 [9 favorites]
In the US, Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD, founded 1980 as Mothers Against Drunk Drivers [name change in 1984]; 1983 TV biopic starring Mariette Hartley as MADD founder Candy Lightner), state and federal task forces, the Uniform Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 (which "Prohibits the Secretary of Transportation from approving Federal-aid highway projects in States in which the purchase or public possession of alcoholic beverages by persons less than 21 years of age" effectively raised the legal drinking age; MADD had successfully lobbied to tie the bill to funding), campaigns & public service announcements (in 1983, the Ad Council partnered with the US gov't for the "Drinking & Driving Can Kill A Friendship" campaign; Stevie Wonder's "Don't Drive Drunk" appeared on 1984's The Woman in Red soundtrack; the 1985 Department of Transportation PSA featuring Wonder's song; DOT's smashing "When friends don't stop friends from driving drunk... friends die" PSA; etc.) '80s/'90s state-level changes to BAC limits, and increased media coverage (Wayne's World: "Drunk Driving PSA", SNL, 1990), meant that by "the early 1990s, attitudes had matured; designated drivers were appearing in movies, and the MADD tagline “Friends don’t let friends drive drunk”... gets referenced in this scene in 1993's Groundhog Day.
posted by Iris Gambol at 2:31 PM on August 28 [9 favorites]
Toronto transit runs 24 hour bus services known as the Blue Night routes, or also known as the Vomit Comet.
Blue Night network map
posted by yyz at 2:45 PM on August 28 [1 favorite]
Blue Night network map
posted by yyz at 2:45 PM on August 28 [1 favorite]
Regarding in-car breathalyzers, this New York Times article (gift linked) from a few years addresses some of the issues. One is false positives—apparently some can detect alcohol from mouthwash and even sweet foods like donuts. It's a serious issue when that's reported to courts and could send someone to jail, but it's obviously also not great if it's randomly disabling sober people's vehicles when they need to be somewhere.
Another issue is whether to retest people while they're driving. Doing so is dangerous because it can cause accidents and might cause people to speed to their destination before they need to blow again. Not doing so means you might not catch people who got in the car under the limit but soon after drinking, or those who have a more sober friend blow for them. Those people aren't getting stopped now, either, but I could see bad scenarios where people realize they've had a few too many and panic sprint to the car, hoping to get on the road before they blow too high, knowing they'll get drunker as they drive.
posted by smelendez at 2:54 PM on August 28 [2 favorites]
Another issue is whether to retest people while they're driving. Doing so is dangerous because it can cause accidents and might cause people to speed to their destination before they need to blow again. Not doing so means you might not catch people who got in the car under the limit but soon after drinking, or those who have a more sober friend blow for them. Those people aren't getting stopped now, either, but I could see bad scenarios where people realize they've had a few too many and panic sprint to the car, hoping to get on the road before they blow too high, knowing they'll get drunker as they drive.
posted by smelendez at 2:54 PM on August 28 [2 favorites]
In South Korea the limit is .02, but there is robust public transportation and taxis are generally inexpensive-ish and readily available anywhere. Also there is a service where if you have your car and get drunk you can call and have a guy drive you home in your own car. I don't think that drunk driving is that much of an issue here even though people drink a ton, mostly because there are convenient options to prevent people from drinking and driving.
posted by Literaryhero at 3:00 PM on August 28 [5 favorites]
posted by Literaryhero at 3:00 PM on August 28 [5 favorites]
Reluctant Utahn chiming in. The change to a 0.05 BAC was a step in the right direction, though it was largely intended as another legislative middle-finger to the non-Mormon population.
Generally speaking, drunk driving is penalized far more aggressively here than any other kind of irresponsible driving. Our lawmakers are overwhelmingly members of a religion that forbids drinking alcohol, and their prime directive is to impose that religion on everyone else. Distraction, recklessness, drowsiness, and the influence of prescription drugs are not considered real problems.
Lately, our road rage laws have gotten a few grown-up teeth, because too many (usually sober) people were pulling guns on strangers for “disrespecting” them on the highway. Those GSW deaths won’t count as MVA statistics, but they’re absolutely a symptom of car culture — and that’s an addiction, too.
Reducing BAC thresholds is necessary but not sufficient. As people drink less, other wedges of the “shitty driver” pie chart will expand — especially the arrogant ones like rage, “multi-tasking,” and speeding.
I know public transit and walkable neighborhoods won’t solve everything, but they have to be part of the solution. If folks in white-flight exurbs find those options unsatisfactory, maybe we should step up enforcement in those areas first. I’ve seen what car-dependent communities do to the driving habits of their residents, and even the sober ones tend to get complacent and sloppy.
posted by armeowda at 3:50 PM on August 28 [6 favorites]
Generally speaking, drunk driving is penalized far more aggressively here than any other kind of irresponsible driving. Our lawmakers are overwhelmingly members of a religion that forbids drinking alcohol, and their prime directive is to impose that religion on everyone else. Distraction, recklessness, drowsiness, and the influence of prescription drugs are not considered real problems.
Lately, our road rage laws have gotten a few grown-up teeth, because too many (usually sober) people were pulling guns on strangers for “disrespecting” them on the highway. Those GSW deaths won’t count as MVA statistics, but they’re absolutely a symptom of car culture — and that’s an addiction, too.
Reducing BAC thresholds is necessary but not sufficient. As people drink less, other wedges of the “shitty driver” pie chart will expand — especially the arrogant ones like rage, “multi-tasking,” and speeding.
I know public transit and walkable neighborhoods won’t solve everything, but they have to be part of the solution. If folks in white-flight exurbs find those options unsatisfactory, maybe we should step up enforcement in those areas first. I’ve seen what car-dependent communities do to the driving habits of their residents, and even the sober ones tend to get complacent and sloppy.
posted by armeowda at 3:50 PM on August 28 [6 favorites]
If every cloistered little suburban tract had a centralized bar we'd probably be a lot better off but that might damage property values!
Oh sure, one of the houses at the neck of the culdesac. Bar, package pickup/dropoff, cooler for deliveries from the local market garden/dairy/heatnserve, someplace pleasant to wait for the ruburban bus that runs along the connector road. Afterschool hang. Woonerf the interior of the culdesac so everyone is moving very very slowly. It could be pretty delightful!
posted by clew at 4:10 PM on August 28 [4 favorites]
Oh sure, one of the houses at the neck of the culdesac. Bar, package pickup/dropoff, cooler for deliveries from the local market garden/dairy/heatnserve, someplace pleasant to wait for the ruburban bus that runs along the connector road. Afterschool hang. Woonerf the interior of the culdesac so everyone is moving very very slowly. It could be pretty delightful!
posted by clew at 4:10 PM on August 28 [4 favorites]
I'm currently undergoing a round of physical therapy related to a long-term chronic illness. EVERYTHING to do with physical therapy is operating under the assumption that 1. you were injured in a car wreck and 2. you need to sue someone over it.
Huh. I’ve been through a lot of rounds of physical therapy for my chronic illness in my life, and I’ve never experienced this. They ask me once if it’s related to an accident or injury and then never again. Insurance has never asked, none of the paperwork was injury-related, and I don’t think the word car or vehicle ever came up. And I’m in one of the drunkest cities in the country with drunk driving so bad I refuse to be on a highway past 8pm. Maybe my hospital is just more professional about differentiating that, idk.
posted by brook horse at 4:56 PM on August 28
Huh. I’ve been through a lot of rounds of physical therapy for my chronic illness in my life, and I’ve never experienced this. They ask me once if it’s related to an accident or injury and then never again. Insurance has never asked, none of the paperwork was injury-related, and I don’t think the word car or vehicle ever came up. And I’m in one of the drunkest cities in the country with drunk driving so bad I refuse to be on a highway past 8pm. Maybe my hospital is just more professional about differentiating that, idk.
posted by brook horse at 4:56 PM on August 28
I seem to recall that drinking and driving was far more socially tolerated as late as the 1980s than it is today.
Iris Gambol nailed it. There was a huge movement on this score in the 80s. As a teen I remember MADD and SADD appearing.
posted by doctornemo at 6:58 PM on August 28 [8 favorites]
Iris Gambol nailed it. There was a huge movement on this score in the 80s. As a teen I remember MADD and SADD appearing.
posted by doctornemo at 6:58 PM on August 28 [8 favorites]
I 100% support cul-de-sac bars/coffeeshops whatever. I spent about 18 months of my young adult life adrift in the suburbs with my parents. Downtown was too far away for me to drink so I resorted to the old high school standby—the Waffle House, no alcohol and still not-quite walkable, but at the time it and I were still cigarette friendly and lord the nights we had scattered, smothered, caffeinated, and 10-12 cigarettes in (it’s a miracle I can still breathe, ps).
The suburbs need hangouts that are not just, like, PF Chang’s and the Starbucks drive-through or whatever.
posted by thivaia at 6:59 PM on August 28 [5 favorites]
The suburbs need hangouts that are not just, like, PF Chang’s and the Starbucks drive-through or whatever.
posted by thivaia at 6:59 PM on August 28 [5 favorites]
The role of public transportation shouldn't be ignored here
I agree that's a huge huge factor. I'm not ever going to drive drunk in Japan. Know why? I don't ever drive a car when I'm in Japan. I don't need to. I've gone 8 months without driving a car. (Also because I don't drive drunk, but the point is I can't even be tempted to)
posted by ctmf at 7:29 PM on August 28 [7 favorites]
I agree that's a huge huge factor. I'm not ever going to drive drunk in Japan. Know why? I don't ever drive a car when I'm in Japan. I don't need to. I've gone 8 months without driving a car. (Also because I don't drive drunk, but the point is I can't even be tempted to)
posted by ctmf at 7:29 PM on August 28 [7 favorites]
A couple of data points to add:
I am currently doing physical therapy and the check-in questionnaire ask every time if this was an accident or work related. its a digital thing so I just have to click next. I does specific "car accident"
Because of the above injury I have been taking the bus to work instead of ridding my bike. The bus (actually two busses with a transfer) takes longer than a bike, but much more relaxing than driving and I don't get worried about getting run over. In the last 20 trips I had one possible high guy who was talking to himself and making some people uncomfortable. I also had high schoolers vaping in the back.
Growing up in the suburbs, I saw a fair amount of adults BBQing and drinking in neighbors back yards. When I was old enough to drive there were some parents were OK with us drinking as long as we stayed the night. Now I live in an urban neighborhood with tons of bars of restaurants, but we do still have a circuit of different dads who host beers in the backyards on a regular basis.
posted by CostcoCultist at 10:28 PM on August 28 [1 favorite]
I am currently doing physical therapy and the check-in questionnaire ask every time if this was an accident or work related. its a digital thing so I just have to click next. I does specific "car accident"
Because of the above injury I have been taking the bus to work instead of ridding my bike. The bus (actually two busses with a transfer) takes longer than a bike, but much more relaxing than driving and I don't get worried about getting run over. In the last 20 trips I had one possible high guy who was talking to himself and making some people uncomfortable. I also had high schoolers vaping in the back.
Growing up in the suburbs, I saw a fair amount of adults BBQing and drinking in neighbors back yards. When I was old enough to drive there were some parents were OK with us drinking as long as we stayed the night. Now I live in an urban neighborhood with tons of bars of restaurants, but we do still have a circuit of different dads who host beers in the backyards on a regular basis.
posted by CostcoCultist at 10:28 PM on August 28 [1 favorite]
Poland is .02 which is very much "not too hungover the next morning" with our general tolerance and national drinking levels, with obligatory jail time after .05. Highest ever registered BAC while driving a car in Poland was .148 - the guy died over a week later of his injuries in the car accident. (There was a .228 but measured post mortem since the guy died from driving into a tractor - with his blood over 2% alcohol.) Highest survived DUI BAC was .137.
We have a decent culture of not letting visibly stumbling drunk people drive (calling a cab, driving a friend home, propping them at a bus stop to sleep it off etc) but it's the high tolerance that's the problem. They're both from habituation and genetic - I know people who drink once a year and still aren't visibly tipsy after five standard drinks, though their reflexes and judgement are impaired in ways you have to know them to recognise. Police generally do mass sobriety testing days in the morning and even 6 hours after the traditional last drinks, around 1 in 100 drivers on a Monday morning in southeast Poland is still technically drunk.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 4:07 AM on August 29 [2 favorites]
We have a decent culture of not letting visibly stumbling drunk people drive (calling a cab, driving a friend home, propping them at a bus stop to sleep it off etc) but it's the high tolerance that's the problem. They're both from habituation and genetic - I know people who drink once a year and still aren't visibly tipsy after five standard drinks, though their reflexes and judgement are impaired in ways you have to know them to recognise. Police generally do mass sobriety testing days in the morning and even 6 hours after the traditional last drinks, around 1 in 100 drivers on a Monday morning in southeast Poland is still technically drunk.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 4:07 AM on August 29 [2 favorites]
EVERYTHING to do with physical therapy is operating under the assumption that 1. you were injured in a car wreck and 2. you need to sue someone over it. The insurance folks immediately wanted to know about our wreck (none, if there was one that's responsible it happened in 1997) and there was a ton of wreck-related paperwork to fill out at the therapy office.There are some researchers who hold that the U.S. subsidizes cars on the order of a trillion dollars annually mostly in the form of not requiring drivers to fully pay for the damage they cause, which is absolutely brutal in conjunction with our massively overpriced healthcare system. I know my father had at least two DUIs and there is no way the victims were even paid enough for the therapy, much less quality of life impacts. I periodically wonder about that while reading the fairly common stories about opioid abuse which quite frequently start with someone being in a car collision and incompletely-managed long-term pain.
I know that's mostly to do with our car-centric culture but drunk-driving is tied up closely with car-centricity and causes a bunch of those wrecks.
Another notable subsidy is that in much of the country you can’t even legally operate a bar without a parking lot, which as you pointed out is completely backwards. My hot take is that zoning laws should only allow a bar to have short-term loading spaces (daytime deliveries, passengers during business hours) and if that means the business district needs to start supporting bus service that’s a net win for everyone in the area.
posted by adamsc at 5:41 AM on August 29 [8 favorites]
I have strong memories of cultural messages in the 1990s about picking a designated driver, and how bartenders would give DD's free non-alcoholic drinks, etc.
When I mention this now to my early-20s kids, they have no idea what I am talking about. Is this no longer A Thing?
posted by wenestvedt at 6:35 AM on August 29 [5 favorites]
When I mention this now to my early-20s kids, they have no idea what I am talking about. Is this no longer A Thing?
posted by wenestvedt at 6:35 AM on August 29 [5 favorites]
there's some statistic about how for every DUI that's caught, there are 100 more that weren't.
I was told that it was more like 700.
Mandatory blood-alcohol ignition interlock devices (BAIID) in cars would never get passed; making the devices too sensitive would result in a huge number of false positives, and making them less sensitive would defeat the purpose. When I had to have one in my car, it included a little camera pointed at my face so that the monitoring agency could do spot checks to make sure that I was the one actually blowing into the device. Without it, alcoholics would get their kids or other sober passengers to do it.
There really does need to be a normalization and subsidization of rehab facilities for people who need it. But really making that something that people would feel free to use if they needed it would require making it OK for someone to take a month off for it, and there's still a really unhealthy work culture in America; it wasn't that long ago that some corporate types tried to convince us that "quiet quitting" was bad.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:07 AM on August 29 [6 favorites]
I was told that it was more like 700.
Mandatory blood-alcohol ignition interlock devices (BAIID) in cars would never get passed; making the devices too sensitive would result in a huge number of false positives, and making them less sensitive would defeat the purpose. When I had to have one in my car, it included a little camera pointed at my face so that the monitoring agency could do spot checks to make sure that I was the one actually blowing into the device. Without it, alcoholics would get their kids or other sober passengers to do it.
There really does need to be a normalization and subsidization of rehab facilities for people who need it. But really making that something that people would feel free to use if they needed it would require making it OK for someone to take a month off for it, and there's still a really unhealthy work culture in America; it wasn't that long ago that some corporate types tried to convince us that "quiet quitting" was bad.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:07 AM on August 29 [6 favorites]
EVERYTHING to do with physical therapy is operating under the assumption that 1. you were injured in a car wreck and 2. you need to sue someone over it.
This hasn't been my experience with PT at all and I'm currently at the end of treatment.
posted by cooker girl at 7:35 AM on August 29 [1 favorite]
This hasn't been my experience with PT at all and I'm currently at the end of treatment.
posted by cooker girl at 7:35 AM on August 29 [1 favorite]
Mandatory blood-alcohol ignition interlock devices (BAIID) in cars would never get passed
The 2021 infrastructure bill purported to require cars from MY 2027 forward to have drunk/distracted driving detection systems of some kind. (The article notes that current IID tech would produce millions of false positives a day.)
Not sure what's happened with that. Maybe it will just turn out to be more aggressive lane departure etc. warnings, with a mandatory data recorder.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:36 AM on August 29
The 2021 infrastructure bill purported to require cars from MY 2027 forward to have drunk/distracted driving detection systems of some kind. (The article notes that current IID tech would produce millions of false positives a day.)
Not sure what's happened with that. Maybe it will just turn out to be more aggressive lane departure etc. warnings, with a mandatory data recorder.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:36 AM on August 29
The program mentioned in that Vice article is called DADSS (the DADSS jokes, they make themselves), and this raised an eyebrow: the breathalyzer system is "being designed to distinguish between the driver’s breath and any passengers." How? Is Stephen Strange involved?
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:07 AM on August 29 [1 favorite]
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:07 AM on August 29 [1 favorite]
If I have a drink, the car stays where it is until the next day. If you can't afford a cab or alternate arrangements, then seek counseling for your addiction.
Ummm, having a drink does not equate to being an addict anymore than having a salad makes you a vegan.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:15 AM on August 29 [3 favorites]
Ummm, having a drink does not equate to being an addict anymore than having a salad makes you a vegan.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:15 AM on August 29 [3 favorites]
When I mention this now to my early-20s kids, they have no idea what I am talking about. Is this no longer A Thing?
Late stage capitalism gives less power to individual bartenders to do incentives like this. I haven’t seen a free drink be given to a DD in over fifteen years. I remember also when bartenders also used to collect keys and give them only to the sober DD; you can’t really do that anymore I think for liability reasons.
I think as the economy has gotten tighter the programs have dried up, which paradoxically increases rather than decreases the DUIs.
posted by corb at 8:15 AM on August 29 [4 favorites]
Late stage capitalism gives less power to individual bartenders to do incentives like this. I haven’t seen a free drink be given to a DD in over fifteen years. I remember also when bartenders also used to collect keys and give them only to the sober DD; you can’t really do that anymore I think for liability reasons.
I think as the economy has gotten tighter the programs have dried up, which paradoxically increases rather than decreases the DUIs.
posted by corb at 8:15 AM on August 29 [4 favorites]
Every Single New Car in the US should be fitted with an interlock device, and every existing car owner should be given a huge insurance credit for having one installed. The insurance industry could absolutely drive this change and simply price out any car owner who doesn't comply. No device, well your insurance is now 2k per month. Stopped for a DUI because you bypassed the interlock -- automatic jail time and car impounded. This problem is solvable.
posted by OHenryPacey at 8:26 AM on August 29 [2 favorites]
posted by OHenryPacey at 8:26 AM on August 29 [2 favorites]
Blood alcohol limits are absolutely shitty and stupid without free breathalyzer tests in every establishment with a liquor permit. Not paid breathalyzer tests, free. You should be able to walk into a bathroom and privately assess your level of blood alcohol without having to pay 20$ to do so. It is a public health initiative and in the interest of society. I have no fucking clue why we don’t do this
For the same reason that they don't list the fat percentage on fresh meat that they sell, or the date picked on fresh fruits and vegetables sold at green grocers. It's a good idea in theory, but it results in sharply reduced sales for any establishment that does it, and if they keep doing it they go out business.
What drives me wild is how municipalities always promote developing a nightlife. They do it for obvious reasons, because it brings lots of money into the city's coffers from the various fees they get to charge and enough of them like the city having a night life, and a music scene with fashionable people... but night life districts immediately turn into no go zones for anyone but the drinkers, so within a couple of years you are getting derelict properties. Tenants don't want to live there, stores that don't sell booze lose customers, there is puke on the sidewalks in the morning and you can hear the drunks brawling overnight... I used to count the new broken windows that appeared every weekend.
I've lived in two neighborhoods that turned into trendy bar districts, and stopped being safe, friendly neighborhoods as a result, and have observed it happen to several more. I get that there needs to be bars and I get that there is a lot of good about the music scene that can thrive with the support of the bars. But it makes me sad that cities keep throwing so much money into creating a thriving night life and the result is drunk driving and urban decay.
posted by Jane the Brown at 8:30 AM on August 29 [4 favorites]
For the same reason that they don't list the fat percentage on fresh meat that they sell, or the date picked on fresh fruits and vegetables sold at green grocers. It's a good idea in theory, but it results in sharply reduced sales for any establishment that does it, and if they keep doing it they go out business.
What drives me wild is how municipalities always promote developing a nightlife. They do it for obvious reasons, because it brings lots of money into the city's coffers from the various fees they get to charge and enough of them like the city having a night life, and a music scene with fashionable people... but night life districts immediately turn into no go zones for anyone but the drinkers, so within a couple of years you are getting derelict properties. Tenants don't want to live there, stores that don't sell booze lose customers, there is puke on the sidewalks in the morning and you can hear the drunks brawling overnight... I used to count the new broken windows that appeared every weekend.
I've lived in two neighborhoods that turned into trendy bar districts, and stopped being safe, friendly neighborhoods as a result, and have observed it happen to several more. I get that there needs to be bars and I get that there is a lot of good about the music scene that can thrive with the support of the bars. But it makes me sad that cities keep throwing so much money into creating a thriving night life and the result is drunk driving and urban decay.
posted by Jane the Brown at 8:30 AM on August 29 [4 favorites]
There's another far stupider problem with breathalyzers in a bar - because I've been around bars where they've been installed - there's a crowd for whom they become a dare and a contest with dummies competing to see who can blow highest.
Breathalyzers also require maintenance to keep reasonably accurate and most of the bars/nightclubs I've been around with them don't give a single damn about doing that in addition to the rest of the work.
I can't see mandatory interlocks becoming a thing because of attitudes and liability concerns. (Imagine the lawsuit if a false positive, which do happen a fair bit, kept you from getting to the hospital or even just made you late for work.) People scream bloody murder about anything that interferes with "ma freedoms!" - they'll vote for harsher penalties rather than inconvenience themselves. Better to punish the morally wicked and corrupt than "law abiding me" (see also American attitudes about guns. Here in CA, it's absolutely required that every new gun purchase is accompanied by a trigger lock sale. Almost every gun owner I know takes the things off and throws them in a bag never to be thought of again)
posted by drewbage1847 at 9:17 AM on August 29 [3 favorites]
Breathalyzers also require maintenance to keep reasonably accurate and most of the bars/nightclubs I've been around with them don't give a single damn about doing that in addition to the rest of the work.
I can't see mandatory interlocks becoming a thing because of attitudes and liability concerns. (Imagine the lawsuit if a false positive, which do happen a fair bit, kept you from getting to the hospital or even just made you late for work.) People scream bloody murder about anything that interferes with "ma freedoms!" - they'll vote for harsher penalties rather than inconvenience themselves. Better to punish the morally wicked and corrupt than "law abiding me" (see also American attitudes about guns. Here in CA, it's absolutely required that every new gun purchase is accompanied by a trigger lock sale. Almost every gun owner I know takes the things off and throws them in a bag never to be thought of again)
posted by drewbage1847 at 9:17 AM on August 29 [3 favorites]
Two days ago I used one of my *four* AAA Automotive calls. My membership includes four calls (for battery service, tire service, tow up to 100 miles, costs 100 bucks a year. I drive old vehicles, I am *never* without it.
What happened a few days ago? I had a mechanic service my truck (he is really good, also something needed if you're going to drive an old car or truck) he serviced my truck, the next day the stupid orange CHECK ENGINE light came on; most ppl just drive through those but not I, I babied the truck home, got it towed back to the mechanic next day, had him determine w/t/f was up. (I *could* have driven with that idiot light on, some sort of mild, off-hand bs repair but I do not ignore because could just as easy been something major costing god alone knows how much.)
It's poor mans insurance.
But -- and this is why I'm writing here in this thread -- it's also FOUR TOWS HOME, from wherever to wherever, 100 miles cap. I'm not sure if they have some bs regulation that says "No, don't think you're going to use this service as Uber." or whatever but that would be the time to say "No, it really won't start." or what have you.
end public service announcement
For whatever it's worth, my take on drunk driving is cars/trucks that won't start when piloted by someone who has had any alcohol. That could easy be tightened down to include pot.
Who am I to say this? A fool, who risked my own life and yours many times. You should see my neck xray -- a twisted mess. I'm sorry I was that careless. It was what I was taught. I know way better now.
posted by dancestoblue at 11:10 AM on August 29 [1 favorite]
What happened a few days ago? I had a mechanic service my truck (he is really good, also something needed if you're going to drive an old car or truck) he serviced my truck, the next day the stupid orange CHECK ENGINE light came on; most ppl just drive through those but not I, I babied the truck home, got it towed back to the mechanic next day, had him determine w/t/f was up. (I *could* have driven with that idiot light on, some sort of mild, off-hand bs repair but I do not ignore because could just as easy been something major costing god alone knows how much.)
It's poor mans insurance.
But -- and this is why I'm writing here in this thread -- it's also FOUR TOWS HOME, from wherever to wherever, 100 miles cap. I'm not sure if they have some bs regulation that says "No, don't think you're going to use this service as Uber." or whatever but that would be the time to say "No, it really won't start." or what have you.
end public service announcement
For whatever it's worth, my take on drunk driving is cars/trucks that won't start when piloted by someone who has had any alcohol. That could easy be tightened down to include pot.
Who am I to say this? A fool, who risked my own life and yours many times. You should see my neck xray -- a twisted mess. I'm sorry I was that careless. It was what I was taught. I know way better now.
posted by dancestoblue at 11:10 AM on August 29 [1 favorite]
My impression is that IIDs are currently an expensive, unreliable product/service. I don’t think the “enforcement would disproportionately fall on the poor” objection that people have raised in this thread is always a good one - “okay but saving lives takes priority” is always there as a rejoinder - but this kind of thing definitely could. Presumably there would be some pressure towards improvement if they were built into every car by the manufacturer instead of by third parties that exist to exploit a legally captive market but still it seems hard to get around the “what if it’s an emergency and my car doesn’t work??” objection.
posted by atoxyl at 12:01 PM on August 29 [1 favorite]
posted by atoxyl at 12:01 PM on August 29 [1 favorite]
That could easy be tightened down to include pot.
This has the problem that detection times for cannabis use are notoriously extended compared to other drugs because of the lipophilic properties of THC and its metabolites. And there’s not that much literature on the exact relationship between blood levels and impairment. It’s imprecise for alcohol, too, but at least there are fairly straightforward approximate calculations and guidelines, and you’re not going to unexpectedly test positive two days later.
posted by atoxyl at 12:11 PM on August 29 [2 favorites]
This has the problem that detection times for cannabis use are notoriously extended compared to other drugs because of the lipophilic properties of THC and its metabolites. And there’s not that much literature on the exact relationship between blood levels and impairment. It’s imprecise for alcohol, too, but at least there are fairly straightforward approximate calculations and guidelines, and you’re not going to unexpectedly test positive two days later.
posted by atoxyl at 12:11 PM on August 29 [2 favorites]
They ask me once if it’s related to an accident or injury and then never again. Insurance has never asked, none of the paperwork was injury-related, and I don’t think the word car or vehicle ever came up.
My PT is through UTSW, which is a state med school as well as hospital/med center/etc. They're a great practice but maybe that's part of them being a med school or state-financed. But it comes up on all the paperwork and I definitely had to mail something back to my insurance over the PT.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 1:36 PM on August 29 [1 favorite]
My PT is through UTSW, which is a state med school as well as hospital/med center/etc. They're a great practice but maybe that's part of them being a med school or state-financed. But it comes up on all the paperwork and I definitely had to mail something back to my insurance over the PT.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 1:36 PM on August 29 [1 favorite]
ochswar: The people who use public transit as their solution are... usually also responsible enough not to get 3 sheets to the wind.
Well SOMEone has never been on the Chicago Red Line after a Cubs game.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 3:06 PM on August 29 [8 favorites]
Well SOMEone has never been on the Chicago Red Line after a Cubs game.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 3:06 PM on August 29 [8 favorites]
I ride the bus and the light rail a lot and at no point have I ever thought "this experience could be improved by adding more drunk people."
(For real last week, on said train, a young guy sitting across from me was drinking in alternation from a full-size bottle of Crown Royal and a 20 oz bottle of Coke. That's one way to have a Crown Royal and Coke, I guess. You might think that kid's an idiot, and to be sure, he is. But guess what that idiot wasn't doing: killing people with his car. This kid's gonna do what he's doing. Where do we want him MORE, on the train or behind the wheel?)
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 3:08 PM on August 29 [8 favorites]
(For real last week, on said train, a young guy sitting across from me was drinking in alternation from a full-size bottle of Crown Royal and a 20 oz bottle of Coke. That's one way to have a Crown Royal and Coke, I guess. You might think that kid's an idiot, and to be sure, he is. But guess what that idiot wasn't doing: killing people with his car. This kid's gonna do what he's doing. Where do we want him MORE, on the train or behind the wheel?)
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 3:08 PM on August 29 [8 favorites]
There's another far stupider problem with breathalyzers in a bar - because I've been around bars where they've been installed - there's a crowd for whom they become a dare and a contest with dummies competing to see who can blow highest.
Yeah, I usually use the portable one I have discretely in the bathroom because otherwise some people will be dicks about it, and the rest will want to turn it into a parlor game (also annoying if more than one or two, plus unsanitary).
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:29 PM on August 29
Yeah, I usually use the portable one I have discretely in the bathroom because otherwise some people will be dicks about it, and the rest will want to turn it into a parlor game (also annoying if more than one or two, plus unsanitary).
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:29 PM on August 29
I haven’t seen a free drink be given to a DD in over fifteen years.
What kind of drink were they given? I’ve generally found bars where you order from the bartender will give nondrinkers in a group free fountain/gun soda, but I’ve never seen a restaurant where you order from a server do this.
posted by smelendez at 4:19 PM on August 29 [2 favorites]
What kind of drink were they given? I’ve generally found bars where you order from the bartender will give nondrinkers in a group free fountain/gun soda, but I’ve never seen a restaurant where you order from a server do this.
posted by smelendez at 4:19 PM on August 29 [2 favorites]
if it was fifteen years ago, that might be the DD's one free drink
posted by snuffleupagus at 4:41 PM on August 29 [1 favorite]
posted by snuffleupagus at 4:41 PM on August 29 [1 favorite]
Two people from my school year were dead in vehicle accidents, and another with permanent serious brain damage, before we hit 20yo. They were all drunk males on motorbikes (two as solo rider, one as drunk passenger to a drunk rider), late at night, in wet weather.
Pretty much the complete set of risk factors: teenage, male, motorbike, alcohol, late night, rain.
I sold my bike after the third one, and have not been on a motorbike since (apart from a small amount of quiet off-road trail riding on a dirt bike for another couple of years).
It was an easy choice.
posted by Pouteria at 7:44 PM on August 29
Pretty much the complete set of risk factors: teenage, male, motorbike, alcohol, late night, rain.
I sold my bike after the third one, and have not been on a motorbike since (apart from a small amount of quiet off-road trail riding on a dirt bike for another couple of years).
It was an easy choice.
posted by Pouteria at 7:44 PM on August 29
I’ve never seen a restaurant where you order from a server do this [give free drinks to DDs]
It's been *checks calendar* a good 10 years since I been the group DD at a public establishment but back then restaurants would often comp fountain/gun drinks or even coffee and tea and sometimes non gun juices.
In some of the pubs they'd even comp some food if the party was all ordering substantial food.
The one time I was in a strip club they didn't charge the DD for drinks.
You were still expected to tip at all these places of course.
posted by Mitheral at 10:17 PM on August 29 [1 favorite]
It's been *checks calendar* a good 10 years since I been the group DD at a public establishment but back then restaurants would often comp fountain/gun drinks or even coffee and tea and sometimes non gun juices.
In some of the pubs they'd even comp some food if the party was all ordering substantial food.
The one time I was in a strip club they didn't charge the DD for drinks.
You were still expected to tip at all these places of course.
posted by Mitheral at 10:17 PM on August 29 [1 favorite]
It may also have changed as expected drinking culture has changed; previously all adults expected to drink and the designated driver was understood to be performing an onerous duty in refraining - now more adults do not drink by choice and I think bars feel less need to subsidize them.
posted by corb at 10:28 PM on August 29 [1 favorite]
posted by corb at 10:28 PM on August 29 [1 favorite]
Just realised that I gave the Polish records wrong - in US terms they're 1.47 etc, hence my amusement at .5 being called lethal.
And we just had the first actual case of the new measure against drunk driving: above .15 you lose your car or pay a fine equivalent of the value of the car you were driving when caught if it wasn't your own car. This scales decently with income.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 6:53 AM on August 30 [1 favorite]
And we just had the first actual case of the new measure against drunk driving: above .15 you lose your car or pay a fine equivalent of the value of the car you were driving when caught if it wasn't your own car. This scales decently with income.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 6:53 AM on August 30 [1 favorite]
Memphis had a pilot program a few decades back where breathalyzers were put into some bars for people to test themselves.
In possibly the most Memphis thing ever, people used them to compete to see who could get the drunkest.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 4:45 PM on August 30 [3 favorites]
In possibly the most Memphis thing ever, people used them to compete to see who could get the drunkest.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 4:45 PM on August 30 [3 favorites]
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posted by hanov3r at 7:58 AM on August 28 [23 favorites]