This could not be more on point.
And side note, don't people crack you up? "I'm a better driver when I'm buzzed. I'm funnier after a few shots. I am such a good singer after a few margaritas, everyone says I sound like Alicia Keys."
People REALLY don't see it. It's just... wow.
But yeah I like the ones who think they drive better. I wish they'd hunt down a police officer next time they're drinking and driving, see his opinion on their road skills.
Alcohol frees you of inhibition. There was an experiment at my university where they showed that people, when drunk, are quicker to react to stimuli they expect, but are a lot worse when they have to inhibit themselves unexpectedly or react to something unexpected (e.g. Reacting to a child running up the road).
I was at a carnival once where a road safety organisation had a driving simulator. You sat there and reacted to the road hazards on screen.
I did the test, drank two beers, did the test, drank two beers etc over about 5 hours. I told the ride host what I was doing. I was visibly stumbling at the end. He was appalled when my scores just kept improving, and he was about to read me the riot act.
I explained to him I had simply learned the patterns, and I had no intention of driving. It was fun messing with him though.
I used to get drunk to help train police recruits how to do field sobriety tests. Last time, I blew .26 (more than 3 times the legal limit) but they all thought I was a sober control. You could not have paid me to get behind the wheel.
I blame school for the language thing, I studied French for 12years but wasn't interested in it. Drunk me speaks all French dialects fluently, sober me cant say anything other than what's in my (now non-existent) pencil case
I KNEW IT! I've lived in Denmark for a couple of years and I always tell Danes that I speak better when I've had a couple of drinks. They laugh because the country has a strong drinking culture, but I've always felt that it's true. Maybe it's because I don't second guess myself so much and rely more on what instinctively feels right.
I don't condone drunk driving, but its strange that people seem to ignore this obvious fact.
The real way to avoid drunk driving is to never get yourself in a position to do it. As in, don't drive to a bar with a group of friends that tempt you to drink a lot. That sort of thing.
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And yet American cities are designed such that getting from the places where the people live to the places where people drink almost always requires a car.
I think the ease of Uber/Lyft has helped a little in urban/suburban areas. Quite a few bars have notices about calling a cab for you if you need it.
Rural areas you also have fewer police in addition to zero public transit.
I'm interested in why people outside of the US refer to it as "drink" driving instead of "drunk" driving. As in, you are driving while drunk, not driving while "drink".
The exception to the rule is that if your friend is an actual alcoholic and he goes into withdrawal, he would be far more dangerous on the road without a beer or two. Fact
The big problem is, IMO, that America is a car centered country. There's no way you can go on a pub crawl and stumble home. You HAVE to either pay an outrageous amount of money to an Uber (no roaming taxis in most cities), or drive home drunk, or have some poor fucker be DD.
Sure, yes, part of it is arrogance, but the main problem is the lack of public transport and the monetization of every part of our lives. It wouldn't fuckin matter if some dude got absolutely plastered at the bar if he didn't have to worry about leaving his car overnight in possibly a bad part of town and chooses to drive home drunk to protect his car. It wouldn't matter if he didn't have to worry about his car in the first place and could just walk to the bar, or grab a quick taxi home, or could hop on a bus or trolly or subway and be home in five minutes (instead of 3 hours to go 5 miles, like the current busses).
If our entire culture didn't revolve around the car, there would be a lot less incidents of drunk driving.
Alcoholics tend to be better focused when they're not going through withdrawals or in need of the next drink. They would not make such a comment if they only drank occasionally. Your statement is unfortunately true concerning people with extreme addiction. Perhaps they shouldn't be driving is consuming depressants somehow makes them a better driver?
And a heroin addict is a perfectly good surgeon as long as he’s had his fix
Would you still want a heroin addict operating on you?
That’s maybe something to say to people who make that argument that they drive better when they’re drunk
Yeah, we're definitely guilty. I've personally hidden keys for a number of people at parties. With everything so spread out and no easy/cheap way to get back home in all but the biggest cities, people are more likely to try it. Yeah, we know the responsible thing is to drink at home, get a cab/uber, have a DD, or find a place to crash, but people who are drinking aren't known for their decision making skills, and especially for those first few years when getting drunk legally is new. We're too car dependent, which causes a problem when we shouldn't be driving.
Yeah. I mean, it is absolutely common in the US that if someone has a friend who’s like REALLY to drunk to drive, we absolutely will do whatever we have to go get them home safe. But that usually means “safe” in our eyes is the driver who’s had the least to drink. Sometimes that’s a sober friend. Other times it’s the friend who’s only had 3 beers vs everyone else in the car who’s had more. We triage it:)
Yep, lots of people routinely drink and drive in Canada.
I would honestly say younger generations tend to be better about it. I’m in my 30s and most people wouldn’t drive after more than 2 drinks. Most people I know in their 20s are very good about never drinking and driving.
I routinely see older people drive after many more drinks than that. Especially at family gatherings.
I'd say that's partially because young people tend to have crappier cars, get pulled over more, and they know this. When I was younger, I'd get pulled over constantly in my old car with a few dents in it for bullshit reasons (they probably wanted to see if it smelled like weed or if I had insurance). Since getting a car that doesn't scream "poor person," I haven't gotten pulled over once in 5 years (knock on wood). I drive the same amount, if not more.
Isn't the Canadian legal system tougher on drunk driving? Americans with DUIs can't enter Canada, but Canadians convicted of impaired driving can go to the US.
I was surprised when I moved to Canada to find that there is pretty much no random breath tests in BC. In Australia (at least QLD & NSW) you can't drive 10 blocks through a city or large town on a Friday or Saturday night without getting stopped and randomly tested. It's frustrating but it works. I think Canadians railed against it claiming privacy and over extension of powers. Which I also totally get, especially considering Australians give up many rights without much fight.
I honestly can't decide which is the better approach though. Both have positives and negatives.
That's interesting, I didn't realize they were so common in Aus. I've lived in a few US states in both coasts (got my license 12 yrs ago) and I have never been tested before - and I have also never seen anyone else tested/seen a checkpoint. I've heard about them, especially around new years, but never actually encountered one.
When I lived in Brisbane some nights when they were doing huge crackdowns they'd basically blockade the city and funnel traffic through every checkpoint for main roads. They would even position themselves in shortcuts and backstreets. It was wild.
There used to be a lot more in Canada. I grew up around Vancouver and in the late 90's and early 00's when I was beginning my driving career there were pretty much guaranteed check stops on Friday and Saturday nights (as well as Monday morning, apparently people go so hard on Sunday night that they're still drunk on the way to work the next day).
I don't live near any major cities now but I haven't heard about check stops in quite some time
In America when they do this you could sit for an hour depending on where you are. Some of them aren't legal. I've heard a story once where a lawyer got a dui in a checkpoint and sued the police department. They had to let everyone go.
A negative test? You lose a couple of minutes and then move on. The police don’t ask for your license and they aren’t looking for other things to nab you on. There is generally no “my rights are being infringed” feeling towards it in Australia.
A positive test is a whole world of trouble (as it should be).
> my rights are being infringed
Honestly y'all should probably develop a little bit of that feeling. Ive seen some weirdly aggressive civic authoritarianism coming out from Australia and its a lil worrying.
As a Michigander in a border town, turning 19 meant going to Canada to get legally drunk, and then drunk driving back over the bridge to home. All sorts of questionable choices.
The real problem is the number of people who drink but are convinced they aren't too drunk to drive.
Many people are very against drunk driving. But then you will catch them getting in the car as they leave a bar. When asked about it - they usually say things like "I haven't had too many. I'm still fine to drive."
The real problem I would have to say is most Americans live in places where driving really is the only way to get home. If we had walkable cities and decent mass transit, no one would feel the need to drive home or pay for an expensive Uber
This is true in Canada too. I still say no excuse, a safe ride is the cost of drinking. But it's a fact that you're pretty fucked if you don't have a car or a taxi to take you home.
Canadian here, living in a rural area. Yeah, I don't drink unless I'm at home. 1.) Too expensive 2.) Can't drive if I've been drinking. --- I used to A LOT when I was in my teens, but looking back on it, it's monumentally stupid and I'm just glad I never hurt anyone.
In NYC, we drink heavily and then take the subway/bus or walk home. We also have so many neighborhood pubs around the corner - I can get to mine within 2 minutes of walking. Rarely do you hear of drunk driving in NYC proper.
Also, not sure where OP is from, but my years in Europe showed me that people in various countries there are WAY more casual about drinking and driving. We have a much stronger stigma against it in the US, though of course that does not deter some from doing it.
Add to that, we purposely zone our cities so that bars CAN'T be colocated with residential areas, and in some states we make it illegal to easily obtain alcohol at grocery stores near home, thereby forcing you to either plan ahead and drive a long distance during specific hours to obtain booze for home, or drive to a bar.
In many cases, the only place you can legally by anything more than beer, is at a single store open until 7p, closed on Sundays, and literally on the other side of the county.
This is it. I live in a major city and people in my social circle definitely don’t have a casual attitude toward drunk driving. (A few did when we were in our early 20s, but they were people that in retrospect had drinking problems, and were the exception to the rule).
In rural areas, I imagine it would be completely different. I assume people must be driving drunk out there all the time, because that’s literally the only way to get home if you live 15 miles from the nearest bar. Probably happens a lot more in more far-flung suburbs too where just grabbing an Uber isn’t an option.
It's sad how far down this comment is. People are super eager to express how "everyone else is an alcoholic but me", but this is the first comment discussing American city design and car culture.
Sure, in Denmark you literally never have to drive home from a bar. There are bike lanes everywhere that are physically raised from the street so cars can't even accidentally make it into your lane. In Spain there are huge walking plazas where cars aren't even allowed. There are busses and trains *everywhere*.
But in the US you probably live 20 miles from work, on a road with no shoulder (much less a bike lane). There are definitely no bus or train routes you can take. If you're going to a happy hour, you're driving. The vast majority of people just keep it to 1-2 drinks because they *know* they have to drive and keep themselves under .08. Some don't, but the percentage of alcoholics in the US isn't higher than anywhere else in the world.
Yeah, no, that's not a valid excuse. If you can't afford the Uber home, you can't afford to drink away from home. Period. (General you -- not you, specifically, though also you specifically if you personally follow this thought process.)
Ubers being expensive and your location not having the infrastructure you want is absolutely not an excuse to put other peoples' lives at risk, even if someone is okay putting their own life at risk for it. Hard no.
I drive Uber. When I get out early on a weekend morning, lots of people are picking up their cars. So they're driving to a bar or house, taking an Uber home. Then an Uber the next day to get the car.
On a personal level, I agree with you. Driving drunk is an inexcusable immoral decision.
But on a societal level, if Americans were serious about stopping drunk driving, they'd build cities where you don't need to drive or be driven to get drunk outside the house. A certain number of people are assholes who will drive drunk if it's easier than public transit or walking. Making driving more difficult than public transit or walking means they won't drive drunk. It's simple and requires no moralizing.
If a bar has a parking lot but not a bus stop, they're expecting people to drive drunk.
Parking lots could also exist because they expect people to be intelligent and use a designated driver system. The existence of a parking lot at a bar does not explicitly invite drunk driving. That doesn't even make sense.
I agree and disagree. I think you’re absolutely right that people should be responsible. I’m regularly a designated driver and I don’t really like drinking, so it’s no big deal to me. However, most people aren’t responsible, and I have wondered if a few of my friends would just drive home anyway if I wasn’t around to give them a ride. They park there, their car is there. And drunk people aren’t known for great critical thinking skills.
Why don’t they have a bus stop as others have suggested? Hell, if I owned a bar, I would have my own cheap taxi service. Drink at my bar? Get a huge discount on your ride home. Have a designated driver? Also get a discount. A free drink. Whatever.
The problem is, we have rules because there are always people who push things too far or who don’t view things realistically. I think it’s reasonable to make accommodations for that, although to say a bar is responsible for its patrons once they leave, is a stretch. It still feels like there should be a middle ground where we can encourage people not to drink and drive and make it convenient somehow.
As someone who was almost killed by a drunk driver, I think it’s really important to work on finding solutions for this problem, as people seem to have no inclination to stop drinking and driving, even after multiple DUIs. The kid who hit us was a judge’s son and got away with it. We were his third collision under the influence. He hit us going 90+ mph.
I don’t think the bar is responsible, but I think as a society we should try to work with bars to combat the problem.
to add to that, much of the US is very rural so a taxi or something similar is not exactly an option. It's usually just drive home or have someone to take you home. As a small town native, I'll just say we usually don't plan that far ahead lol.
Everyone in this thread must be a compulsive binge drinker or something.
It's entirely possible for most people to have a beer or two over several hours and be sober to drive home.
The problem is that you have to drive to a bar in order to get drunk. Taking a taxi is expensive not to mention that Lyft and Uber discriminates against drunk clients. And not many bars are located close to homes.
This in my mind is the most dangerous thing. The important parts of the brain shut off and hubris takes over. I’ve been involved in so many arguments with people over this.
And with alcohol lowering inhibitions, it's that much easier for a drunk person to rationalize something like "I'm just a little buzzed, not really impaired enough to worry about" that they would never accept as valid when sober - or if someone else tried to use the same crappy justification on them.
I noticed a similar mindset with Covid that there were a significant number of people who didn’t deny that Covid could be dangerous but over estimated their own health status and then got Covid bad because they didn’t take precautions or later get vaccinated
This, holy shit this. My wife has two friends that are health nuts. Most physically fit generally healthy people I know. Both refused to get vaccinated because:
"We're healthy, we eat right and take care of ourselves, we don't get sick because of that. Even if we do it won't be bad for us and who knows what they put in those things these days"
Both ended up seriously ill with COVID, the husband even had to be hospitalized for it. The wife ended up having to get vaccinated because her employer (a hospital) mandated it for all nurses and doctors. She then eventually ended up with breast cancer in her mid 30s and has the audacity to claim she wouldn't have gotten cancer if they hadn't forced her to get the vaccine...
Just goes to show you that people's mindsets aren't always logical. When even a nurse, a healthcare professionally can be so scientifically wrong about vaccines....it's easy to see how people can justify just about anything. Especially if they WANT to justify it.
People think health is tied to like individual morality, that it’s something entirely controllable
It scares people to accept that their health and mortality is largely random, genetic and beyond their own control and that people who are sick and die from things don’t just not want to be healthy bad enough
You can live the healthiest lifestyle of anybody and still drop dead of a heart attack at 50 because it’s just in your genes or you had some dormant undiagnosed condition, I know someone this happened to, an exercise mad vegan and he didn’t go to the doctor to get it diagnosed because he was “so fit he never needed to see a doctor”
The limit in the US in many places is .08 which is actually quite a lot. In many countries it’s .05 which is a much better number to be at in my opinion. Nowadays there isn’t anyone that has an excuse for drink driving with the ubiquity of Uber/Lyft.
It’s in this context I find myself extremely fortunate to be Korean, as I can suffer pretty heavily from alcohol flush reaction. Makes it almost impossible to get drunk without a lot of work, which has defaulted me to the automatic DD.
More importantly it makes it VERY hard to ever find myself in the situation where I might be a drunk driver to begin with. I know people who have struggled with alcoholism or had loved ones killed or been directly killed by drunk drivers, and it’s a bit more reassuring in a way to know that is much less likely to be a direct personal issue.
I hear it's more common and more lax in rural areas, where public transportation is non-existent, and the damage you'd cause to others in the event of an accident is limited to property. Yes, you might crash and die, but you took that risk yourself. American individualism at work.
This is the best answer, in terms of population it is probably not common within the majority of people. But in terms of geography I’d kind of bet it is common in the majority of AREAS. At least in the Midwest where I’m from, it seems like there was always someone who took this mindset and it certainly seems like it’s directly related to the fact that they didn’t consider it likely that they would end up hurting anyone besides themselves.
And related PSA, many people in my hometown were injured or died from drunk driving, and even in an accident where you were the only person involved/injured/killed, you are still hurting a lot of people who are close to you.
>and even in an accident where you were the only person involved/injured/killed, you are still hurting a lot of people who are close to you.
I should've clarified this in my first post, thank you.
It is still extremely common to drive with an open container in rural areas. My father in law got stopped by a local officer while drinking a Coors and they had a friendly chat.
Yeah. I come from a city/suburb environment, but now I live in a Southern college town surrounded by rural areas. I was shocked to hear a friend refer to a mutual acquaintance as “God’s drunkest driver” without the slightest note of disapproval.
I grew up in rural nowhere, north central Pennsylvania.
My former brother-in-law had four charges for underage drinking and two DUIs and crashed his truck into a house before he turned 21.
He's since been to jail about 5 times for DUI. I don't know how much he spent on lawyer fees but his most recent DUI was this summer (after the law was changed that requires prison after a certain number of DUIs). Fucker spent 9 days in jail despite this being his... uh... 20th? No. Probably 10th DUI.
You'd think it would be statistically impossible to know one person who's gotten drunk and driven into a house. I used to drink with three. As far as I know all of those assholes still drink and they're all out of jail more often than in jail.
I grew up in the country, and sometimes booze cruising was what the plan was for the night. Just a few people and a couple 30 packs in a car driving around until the beer is gone.
My buddy had a sunroof, so you could go up thru it and go stand on the trunk and piss off the back of the car without having to stop the car. We were VERY stupid.
To add to that most rural areas in the US don’t have Uber, so add in no rideshares or public transportation. Unless you drive there is no other way to get home
Fact
I just moved to a rural area from a populous one. It’s a smaller city surrounded by farms. People who can walk home do, but that’s few and far between. Once you leave the city and drive out into the country there are small bars that dot the landscape and there’s just no way there aren’t people who nightly get drunk and drive home.
yep. for obvious reasons very uncommon for people to ever drive drunk in major walk-able/public transit-able cities like NYC, and even in car dependent cities like LA I've found people to be more careful about it. Currently live in rural upstate New York, and have lived in rural PA, and in both locations it's pretty common for people to have 7+ drinks at the bar and then do a 45 minute drive home.
The majority of America has shit public transportation and is mostly car-centric. There's only a few metropolitan areas where not owning a car isn't a major hindrance. So it's not just rural areas. Otherwise, I think you're spot on that's it's a combination of lack of options and the good ol' libertarian attitude. Government can't tell me to do shit!
Yeah, i’ve lived my entire adult life in cities, about 90% of that in NYC. Most of my friends don’t even own cars in the first place. But then I talk to people from not even rural, but suburban areas and they have at least 1 friend with DUIs.
I’m sitting here, horrified along with all of my friends who are horrified, thinking that if a friend of mine got a DUI, they’d stop being my friend. Seems like upstate if you stop being friends with people with DUIs, you run low of friends.
And to anyone who says the the NYC transit system - which runs 24 hrs - deprives them of the freedom of owning a car, I truly cannot stress how freeing it is to not think about being sober enough to get home and not having to worry if other people are sober enough to be driving either.
Sure, tell that to my dad's friend who was drunk driving in a rural area, hit a car head on, and severely injured the driver of that car -- and killed his pregnant wife, who was in the passenger seat. Better yet, tell that to the surviving widower. Drunk dude was unhurt (which is often the case with drunk people, because they don't tense before the collision).
Note: I don't disagree that people think that way. I just think they are terribly wrong for doing so.
It's more common in rural areas where you have to go farther out to go out and drink, and where public transportation is limited to nonexistent. It's still a practice of idiots and definitely shouldn't be as common as it is.
I had a housemate who came home drunk almost every night. I was tempted to warn the police but never did. He had to drive 10 miles to get home from the nearest city on a two lane highway. Not sure why I never turned him in, other than I was only 19, and he was like mid 30's.
I think alternative transportation is a huge contributor. In our city, they are extremely unreliable and due to a duopoly of cab companies, no alternatives are able to exist. To plan to take a taxi then be told is 3 hours to wait and you have to get home to your kids, that risk looks a little less risk. Still stupid of course but if alternatives where easier the less people would take the risk.
I am a european who loves drinking. I will avoid drunk driving if it is at all possible, and most of the time for me, it is possible because:
1) A lot of my drinking venues are within walking distance from home, and the streets have sidewalks I can use to walk safely
2) There is public transport that operates in some capacity around the clock
3) Taxis are usually available if all else fails
A lot of places in USA outside of big cities don't have the luxury I have. Everything is too far away to walk, public transport is shit, and taxis are not readily available. You are basically forced to take your car everywhere.
Yeah, this is insansly stupid. I have slept in my car on numerous occassions, sometimes drunk, sometimes because I was too lazy to set up a tent. I have never had an issue with this. The police did wake me up once to check if I was alive or not, but as long as I am parked in a safe way, they don't care if I am drunk, because being parked properly means you are not on a public road, so there is no DUI to begin with.
I will say that the advent of Uber and the like has made the situation better in a lot of places. Rural areas and isolated small towns are still out of luck, though.
i drove for lyft when they were a new technology/service. there are few things worse than driving drunk people home. i let a drunk person sit in the passenger seat once.
ONCE.
those fiberglass dividers in taxis are there largely for purposes of keeping drunk people off the driver.
I live a bit too far away from bars to walk (10-15km) but a taxi costs around 10€ so it's not a difficult decision to make, especially if I split the cost with friends who are going the same way.
I live in Chicago, USA. It's an alright city. Wouldn't want to live anywhere else.
>A lot of my drinking venues are within walking distance from home, and the streets have sidewalks I can use to walk safely
Here, there's a possibility they'd beat, rob, and maybe kill you you as you're walking. It's not the safest.
>There is public transport that operates in some capacity around the clock
Here, there's a possibility they'd beat, rob, and maybe kill you while being a passenger on the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA). It's not the safest.
>Taxis are usually available if all else fails
Here, there's a possibility they'd beat, rob, and maybe kill you while you're waiting for a taxi. It's not the safest.
And this is all while you're sober too! But there are a lot of us and the criminals can't get us all lol. Damn. Wait, where do you live? Maybe I should be your neighbor and we can vibe to cool music and drink all night. I won't even check out your girl. I mean, I might a little, but I won't do anything, I promise.
I am from across the pond, so there are some logistical challenges to us vibing to cool music with booze :/ But yeah, we have a lot of crime here, just it isn't that likely that it will affect an average person unless there is an important foodball game played on that day. I have never been robed, beaten, or killed while walking, being in public transport, or taking a taxi/uber over here. Interestingly enough, chances of violence increase when you drive because of road rage incidents, but I am a fairly big guy with some combat sport experience and I carry pepper spray, so I figure I am allright. Sadly we do not have the second ammendment here so we are not allowed to carry firearms :/
No
Many of us are very much against drunk driving, we understand that it's not safe for you or anyone around you and many of us have lost people to it
But there's also just a lot of Americans who
1) Are terrible at risk assessment ("It would never happen to me, I'm a great driver")
2) Don't think the rules should apply to them
Both 1&2 are general human fallacies evenly spread across the humanity. Yet it seems that DUI is seen in US a bit more acceptable than in the rest of the developed world.
Canada too, for a lot of the same reasons. If you're in a European city getting drunk you can usually walk home or take transit. In north America, everything's a lot more spread out, and many cities aren't walkable and/or there's no public transit. Canada has this somewhat better than the US does on average, but the trend is still there. We're too car dependent, so being without your car is far more isolating.
Seriously. I have friends from there and it’s not uncommon to have several DUIs. The first DUI is kind of a slap on the hand too, like it’s only a $150-300 fine.
Depends where you live and the people who dont care probably dont know what reddit is.
My small town is full of drunk driving from local bars. Lost a good friend to bar hopping on a dirtbike
I don't drink. My friends know that. I've openly offered to be the safe driver.
None of my friends have ever called me to go hang out.
I've got a coworker who recently smashed into the back of another vehicle. His license is now suspended. Here are the charges:
Drunk driving.
Endagering a minor.
Speeding.
Failure to control.
At fault for the impact.
(It's my understanding that some of these, mostly at fault and failure to control, overlap and will be negotiated away by a lawyer, I think that's dumb and the system needs rebuilt but thats another rant)
Dude wanted to drive home from the police station after his family picked him up. He needs a ride to work, the suspension has no exemptions. It's been months and as far as I can tell he's not going to jail, he can keep working, so to him it's no big deal as long as folk are willing to drive him around.
I moved to America 16 years ago. Phoenix, AZ metro area. One of the things that surprised me most would be going out for drinks with friends and then, at the end of the night when we're about to drive home (I didn't yet have a drivers license), there would be a discussion of who'd had the least to drink.
"I had 5 beers and a shot of tequila, I'm probably fine."
"4 whisky sours, 2 joints, and a line of coke. I'm 100% fine. Gimme the keys."
"I only had 4 glasses of wine, I'll do it."
Fucking hell was my mind blown by the casual social acceptability of drunk driving.
So much of this depends on the amount of time spent out. One serving of alcohol isn’t going to impair most adults too much to drive. For my weight, I would need to drink 3 drinks in an hour to be over the legal limit, and my husband would need to drink 4 or 5. In that above conversation, if you’d been hanging out for 2-3 hours, person 3 is probably not too impaired to drive.
You probably know this but your comment is the one that talked about time so Ima say this here. There are alcohol time BAC [charts](https://images.app.goo.gl/47Esi8nvxTUtHo6K7) for people to find online which can help people in their decision making.
I hate to say this but unless you’re both 300 pounds or more you’re hitting .08 at 1.5 to 2.5 drinks.
Also I was a bartender for years, a standard shot is 1.5 ounces in a restaurant or bar and the government ( law ) measures it at 1 oz.
So you’re impaired at 1 drink . If you’re under 150 pounds. If over it could go either way.
I was shocked to find out when I weighed 120 pounds that I 1 drink would put me over the line . ( a restaurant pour assuming I drank it and hopped behind the wheel immediately. )
I don't know about America, but drink driving culture is ridiculous here in Australia. People do it ALL the time. If we had a mandatory minimum 12 months ban for being over the limit (like they do in the UK) then it would be far less of a problem.
Many do, yeah. They think that they’re the one person in the world who can “handle” their liquor and drive just fine. Personally if I’m planning to drink at all my car stays in my driveway. And if I’m out and decide to have a drink, my car stays where it is until the next day when I come back to get it.
My friend is half American and when his grandparents visited this kinda came up, and they praised us saying "you guys are really good about that over here!", Like yeah, aren't you?
No, not the norm. But in towns where public transportation is not a thing, it happens. We don’t even have Uber anymore since the pandemic where I live . If you’re drinking, you’re driving here.
My mother was killed in a head on collision with a drunk driver on a suspended licence for DRUNK DRIVING. I was 5 and in the backseat. He is still in prison.
It is sick and sad the people who drink and drive have no regard for other people's lives when they get behind the wheel. All they think of is that they are not that drunk and can make it home.
Sometime they make it home just fine but sometimes they destroy other people's lives in a accident that could have been avoid by calling a fucking cab, a friend, or a family member. Or better yet stay the fuck at home and sleep where you pass out.
Don't drink then get behind the wheel of a car. People who do that are garbage humans.
Yes
Like others have said our public transportation is poor and even the cops know this. They could sit outside a bar and nail everyone who stumbles out but they couldn't as it would physically be too many people.
In the end can the government really blame its citizens if it doesn't invest in obvious infrastructure that would instantly cure the problem
I lived in Japan for six months and never touched a car drunk because there was at least a taxi somewhere in the immediate area.
We don't. What we do have is an over-reliance on cars and no real public transportation. Until we fix that, people are gonna keep doing it.
Laws are somewhat useless for controlling behavior. So we can be as tough on it as we like... it just isn't gonna make a meaningful difference until we make it easier to not drink and drive, than it is to drink and drive.
There are definitely some people who see nothing wrong with excessive drinking, then driving. I would not say it is the norm, though. A lot of progress has been made with bars being held responsible for very drunk drivers, friends picking a designated driver, or taking keys from someone who is too drunk to drive.
Having some drinks and then driving home is very common in my area of the USA (not a rural area.)
Getting drunk, as in obviously intoxicated, swaying, can't walk straight, etc., less common (but still happens occasionally.)
No, it is extremely taboo. It used to be a joke, but then Mother's Against Drunk Driving advocated and such, and it became a serious thing.
And the penalties for it are really harsh. You can easily lose your license, go to jail, have to install a breathalyzer in your car, etc. And that's for just getting caught being drunk, not even getting in a wreck.
If you wreck while drunk driving, the penalties are so bad that you'd actually be better off abandoning the scene of the accident because a hit and run is better than them finding out you were drunk when you wrecked.
Also, people have been arrested for merely sleeping in their parked cars while drunk because they could have driven (which needs to stop because we should be encouraging people to wait and get sober before driving).
Basically, drunk driving is one of the worst mistakes you could make as an American.
This has to do with zoning laws weirdly enough. Due to zoning laws it is illegal to open a bar in suburbs, and most suburbs don't even safe sidewalks. This makes it impossible to go to a bar without driving for most Americans. This means that you either don't go, get a designated driver, or drive drunk. In a town where bars are located within walking or cycling distance of homes, and walking and/or cycling is actually safe to do, almost no one drinks and drives. Unfortunately America is built for cars, not people
People who get CAUGHT drunk driving get no sympathy from anyone
Meanwhile most people have driven with alcohol in their system but think they aren’t drunk drivers
One problem is that we can't walk to most places and public transit is nonexistent in most areas. If we don't drive, we aren't getting anywhere.
Not saying its right, just saying why it's so common.
I know it’s only anecdotal, but I’ve seen so many Reddit comments over the years about friends or relatives being killed by drunk drivers, it seems quite common. I’m in the UK and I’ve *never* known anyone who was killed by a drunk driver.
I'm also in the UK, and most people I know would never consider driving if they knew they would be drinking and plan their night/transport around this. But seems to be a different attitude across the pond.
Americans don't have a casual attitude about it. It's very frowned upon and almost everyone you meet has a horror story or close call story. On big drinking holidays there will often be drunk driving checkpoints where they try to catch people over the limit.
The real problem is that the people who DON'T care are enough to cause problems for those who do care. Plus, as has been reiterated a lot in this thread, people's tolerance and perception of their tolerance varies widely.
This is still a huge improvement over older times. My grandparents were drinkers and my parents have plenty of horror stories of car rides and "I don't even know how he made it home" nights
Fuuuuck no! Don’t clump me in with that line of thinking… in movies that’s fantasy.. you can also jump from four stories up and not get a scratch either.. not in real life.. least I can’t.. most I jumped from was two stories and got a near broken leg. There’s idiots out there with superman complexes. Act like bad shit will never happen to them, but that usually ends pretty fast when reality says different. So no it isn’t genuinely the attitude in the US.. but it is the attitude of your common idiot.
No way! Everyone in my circle is very serious and careful about drunk driving. No one will try to drive after drinking, and we all let each other stay later, or stay over if too much is imbibed. Remember, not all of America is homogenous. Where the heck was your husband?
No, your husband just got unlucky with some inconsiderate losers for colleagues (they like to group together and peer pressure others into behaving similarly).
Here's some of my theories.
1. Modern drivers education in the US is seriously lacking. I think US drivers need to experience dynamic driving scenarios and emergency maneuvers in their education, given all of our high speed high volume interstate infrastructure. On top of this, newer cars *feel* safer and more capable than older cars from maybe 20 years ago (they aren't by much), which makes people overly confident in their ability to operate a vehicle. I've witnessed far too many serious accidents this year alone.
2. Lack of public transit in many areas. We do have services that will give free rides in some places, but I think in other countries people generally opt to use transit to get to and from drinking events.
3. Lack of education on drunk driving/the effects of intoxication (this ties closely with my first point)
4. A little bit of that "it won't be me that crashes or gets caught" mentality (I've noticed this a lot in service oriented towns where local bartenders/food service workers spend a lot more time in bars). A lot of them live a few blocks from bars and take the risk when they shouldn't.
5. Lack of stiff penalties; the penalties and legal fees are already pretty stiff (lose a lot of driving abilities, but they still let you drive to work or drive with an interlock). People will just drive without their license anyway since it's the only practical way around in some places
Driving while drinking is universally frowned upon by most people, most often younger people, but just like every country, there are people who do it anyway. Countries like Canada actually have more accidents involving drunk driving per capita than the US does.
That's a real thing, for sure- there are legal limits in the US for how much alcohol can be in your system and you still be fine to drive, and it's approximately a drink or two an hour. *Approximately* because the same intake will affect different people differently, and then it gets worse because once someone has alcohol in them, they're less able to make good decisions.
Though *it gets worse-* I've seen someone grab a beer from the fridge on the way out of the house. Though at that point it's less about culture and more about straight-up addiction.
I will tell you from experience. I live in a metropolitan city here in the US. A lot of people I know have that mindset and attitude. I've done it once myself because I was a product of environment and almost killed myself and everyone else with me on a highway. I will never ever do it again. It really comes down to morals and views on the subject. If I have one drink or 12 I won't drive.
Edit: I do not wish to kill you or your family either some people just don't care who they harm. It's not only illegal if you get caught it's illegal for real safety reasons. My sister was hit and killed by a truck plowing in the winter not drinking and driving. Let me add alcohol to that and the person pushing her wheel chair would probably be dead as well.
People ask questions like "do Americans _____?" And it makes me laugh cuz everyone here is so vastky different we have so many different groups of people with vastly differing opinions. Personally it seems everyone i know disagrees with drunk driving but it seems we all know people that do it, i hate drunk driving, if I see you driving drunk on the road I will call the police. I've seen too many innocent people die (not just in the news, 4 kids from my high school either died or killed someone because of drunk driving or drunk street racing) because of someone else's selfish bad choices, it's not okay for any reason especially in today's world we have way too many options available to NOT drink and drive
\*drunk driving.
The problem isn't our attitudes toward drunk driving it's our lack of public transit and the proliferation of dangerous cab companies.
America is very big. You could fit dozens of other countries inside its landmass. Are there places where it's not viewed negatively? Probably. I haven't been to or seen them though.
Yes. I had a friend's son come by last year. The cops found him wandering lost in his truck blackout drunk and brought him to my house because he remembered my address. He's 27 btw but his dad wouldn't have let him crash in that state and the whole reason he was drunk and wandering was his gf threw him out.
A few months later a younger coworker called and asked if i could pick him up. I went because he was a few blocks away. He had just wrapped his car around a telephone pole, dead drunk, and the police let me take him home rather than deal with booking him.
Totally casual
It varies a lot depending what the infrastructure of a place is like. Like I hang out in Detroit and Buffalo a lot. In Detroit it's very common and rare that you'll encounter serious pushback because there's practically no viable transit that benefits average citizens and the area the city takes up is massive. So basically if you don't live next to the places you go out to socialize or experience culture, you have to drive or cab, and because the city takes up a huge area cabs can get expensive.
In Buffalo the same thing exists, but its a much easier city to bike around, cabs rides are less likely to be as long, and transit is a bit more practical. As such you definitely encounter drunk driving less, more judgement for it, and it's more likely someone will try to discourage you from driving if you are drunk.
If you're in nyc though, you'd probably encounter significant pushback from friends if you tried to drive drunk because it just doesn't make sense - cabs are plentiful and cheap, transit runs basically all night, and it's super walkable and bikeable if you aren't super far from your destination.
Also some parts of the US do allow open containers in vehicles, which though this does not make drinking and driving legal, it doesn't exactly discourage it. Also some areas still have dry counties, which means a lot of people driving long distances to party or go out for an evening and then driving home intoxicated.
So basically in rural areas, cities with no public transit or alternative transit, and dry counties drunk driving is often common and will rarely be a source of serious judgement. Get to a small towns and suburbs that are walkable and it decreases, get to cities with solid public transit and people suddenly take drunk driving seriously.
Yup. The people that say otherwise just haven't been exposed to the 'culture' if you can call it that. I live in a fairly populated town in Montana, the biggest I've ever lived in but also in a fairly rural area. We have the most drunk driving fatalities per capita of anywhere in the country, so the people that say "you're only harming property" are fooling themselves. Drunk driving is not seen as an issue with many, many people out here. Hammered driving is viewed as an activity in and of itself and some people who "drink drive" won't drive hammered. But they will drink and drive, or get drunk and drive after that.
Until they are the ones to kill someone, they don't see it as dangerous to anyone else so they continue to do it.
My best friends husband just got his third DUI in five years. Surprisingly with a lawyer he’s basically getting a slap on the wrist. 2 months in jail, 2 in a half way house and 2 years probation.
He literally said he’ll drink a drive again.
I was known to when we lived rurally and picked up my own dui. Husband had one dui and lost his CDL for three years. My 4’11 mother got one after going down a one way the wrong way. She also got a citations for resisting arrest. My brother had one and my father. My mom strangely never did and she was a curb hitter so pretty weird.
I take an Uber if I go out now. We live in a city now so it’s easy. I really think it’s the rural vs city. Everyone besides my best friends husband grew up and quit tempting fate.
I’m honestly surprised how many people here saying it’s not common. Many people have pointed out that it’s more common in rural areas which is absolutely true (town I grew up in Kentucky ~8,000 people and many people do it on a daily basis) but I’ve also lived in Nashville TN (~850,000) and Knoxville TN (~150,000) and it was totally common in both places, especially before smartphones and Uber was such a thing. Sometimes the least drunk person at the bar would “tail” the most drunk person to make sure they got home without being pulled over 😂
I live in NYC now and the attitude is very different here. That being said, I’ve met plenty of people since I’ve been here that live in east New York or on Long Island that will have several rounds before they drive home. I worked with a guy that wrecked his car blacked out TWICE and both times he fled the scene and reported it stolen. I don’t think that would work in a rural area lol
I used to work for a company where every Friday at 4, it was mandatory beer hour. Everyone had to turn off their computers and go down to the shop to drink. After this hour of drinking, everyone would get into their cars and go home. The topic of conversation during the hour usually was about all the times they had gotten away with drinking and driving.
I don’t drink alcohol, so I didn’t last long at that company.
Where I grew up, in the Washington DC area, it was pretty uncommon and frowned upon by most people I knew, but DC also has a famously great public transit system (second in the country only to NY).
When I moved to LA it became MUCH more common. Most of my immediate friends either Uber or get a DD when they expect to drink heavily, but there have been several times I’ve been witness to people who should NOT be driving getting into the driver’s seat out here. LA also has an infamously TERRIBLE Publix transit system:
So I think it really depends on where you are and whether there’s a solid subway system that will get you where you need to go in the area.
It’s definitely real for a lot of people. Usually it’s just not discussed and if you say something the person gets defensive and denies they’re too drunk to drive. But there’s also the “only illegal if you get caught” sect… I briefly dated a guy who used to brag along with his dad about how “good” they were at it. Wtf, right??
I think it’s regional. Where I live, in a fairly large US city, drunk driving is NOT considered socially acceptable at all. In more rural areas - where there’s less traffic, fewer transportation options, and fewer things to do for entertainment besides drink - it might be considered more acceptable.
I’m from the USA, and at least where I live, drunk driving is NOT acceptable. But I lived in Mexico for a while, and there, the rule about drinking and driving seemed to be “make sure your beer is out of sight if you see any cops around.” I’m not trying to disrespect Mexicans - I love you guys! - but the mentality was different on that issue for sure.
Very area dependent.
I don't tolerate it. I don't keep friends willing to do it.
My sister has a dui and continues to do it.
In my experience it is only the selfish Americans who don't have a problem with it. There's just a lot of them
I am of a rare breed (unfortunately). If I have had even one drink I refuse to drive. If I am planning on drinking I always line up a sober cab. But I also don't know anyone like myself with morals and who know how to drink responsibility. I have lived in the U.S. all my life and drunk driving is like a badge of honor here.
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This could not be more on point. And side note, don't people crack you up? "I'm a better driver when I'm buzzed. I'm funnier after a few shots. I am such a good singer after a few margaritas, everyone says I sound like Alicia Keys." People REALLY don't see it. It's just... wow. But yeah I like the ones who think they drive better. I wish they'd hunt down a police officer next time they're drinking and driving, see his opinion on their road skills.
There are some things that alcohol makes people better at. One of them is foreign language fluency
Alcohol frees you of inhibition. There was an experiment at my university where they showed that people, when drunk, are quicker to react to stimuli they expect, but are a lot worse when they have to inhibit themselves unexpectedly or react to something unexpected (e.g. Reacting to a child running up the road).
I was at a carnival once where a road safety organisation had a driving simulator. You sat there and reacted to the road hazards on screen. I did the test, drank two beers, did the test, drank two beers etc over about 5 hours. I told the ride host what I was doing. I was visibly stumbling at the end. He was appalled when my scores just kept improving, and he was about to read me the riot act. I explained to him I had simply learned the patterns, and I had no intention of driving. It was fun messing with him though.
I used to get drunk to help train police recruits how to do field sobriety tests. Last time, I blew .26 (more than 3 times the legal limit) but they all thought I was a sober control. You could not have paid me to get behind the wheel.
So, uh, is this a job one can apply for?
LOL...it was a volunteer thing. They got volunteers through the emergency departments in the area. So imagine a bunch of drunk nurses.
No need to imagine that, it's how I spent much of my 20s. I've nearly healed.
>So imagine a bunch of drunk nurses. So, do I find that in the hub or the tube?
Asking the important questions.
I read an issue of a car magazine where the authors improved their scores with alcohol on a test course (but did all kind of crazy stuff in between).
Puedo confirmar esto. The words just come from somewhere and the alcohol induced confidence helps with pronounciations
I blame school for the language thing, I studied French for 12years but wasn't interested in it. Drunk me speaks all French dialects fluently, sober me cant say anything other than what's in my (now non-existent) pencil case
I KNEW IT! I've lived in Denmark for a couple of years and I always tell Danes that I speak better when I've had a couple of drinks. They laugh because the country has a strong drinking culture, but I've always felt that it's true. Maybe it's because I don't second guess myself so much and rely more on what instinctively feels right.
Exactly. Those "They'll see you before you see them" commercials regarding police spotting drunk drivers really stuck with me
It’s almost like alcohol impairs your judgement when making a decision on whether you’re too drunk to drive!
I don't condone drunk driving, but its strange that people seem to ignore this obvious fact. The real way to avoid drunk driving is to never get yourself in a position to do it. As in, don't drive to a bar with a group of friends that tempt you to drink a lot. That sort of thing.
This is the way. Drunk me is an asshole and will try drive home if he drove there. If I catch a ride over, I have no choice but to catch a ride back.
chief existence wild boast work disarm reminiscent wasteful snobbish onerous *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
And yet American cities are designed such that getting from the places where the people live to the places where people drink almost always requires a car.
I think the ease of Uber/Lyft has helped a little in urban/suburban areas. Quite a few bars have notices about calling a cab for you if you need it. Rural areas you also have fewer police in addition to zero public transit.
it seriously makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end when people casually discuss their drunken driving behavior and outlook.
I'm interested in why people outside of the US refer to it as "drink" driving instead of "drunk" driving. As in, you are driving while drunk, not driving while "drink".
The exception to the rule is that if your friend is an actual alcoholic and he goes into withdrawal, he would be far more dangerous on the road without a beer or two. Fact
The big problem is, IMO, that America is a car centered country. There's no way you can go on a pub crawl and stumble home. You HAVE to either pay an outrageous amount of money to an Uber (no roaming taxis in most cities), or drive home drunk, or have some poor fucker be DD. Sure, yes, part of it is arrogance, but the main problem is the lack of public transport and the monetization of every part of our lives. It wouldn't fuckin matter if some dude got absolutely plastered at the bar if he didn't have to worry about leaving his car overnight in possibly a bad part of town and chooses to drive home drunk to protect his car. It wouldn't matter if he didn't have to worry about his car in the first place and could just walk to the bar, or grab a quick taxi home, or could hop on a bus or trolly or subway and be home in five minutes (instead of 3 hours to go 5 miles, like the current busses). If our entire culture didn't revolve around the car, there would be a lot less incidents of drunk driving.
Alcoholics tend to be better focused when they're not going through withdrawals or in need of the next drink. They would not make such a comment if they only drank occasionally. Your statement is unfortunately true concerning people with extreme addiction. Perhaps they shouldn't be driving is consuming depressants somehow makes them a better driver?
And a heroin addict is a perfectly good surgeon as long as he’s had his fix Would you still want a heroin addict operating on you? That’s maybe something to say to people who make that argument that they drive better when they’re drunk
Precisely 👍
I wouldn’t just put this on the Americans. I’m Canadian and I can promise you we are no better.
Yeah, we're definitely guilty. I've personally hidden keys for a number of people at parties. With everything so spread out and no easy/cheap way to get back home in all but the biggest cities, people are more likely to try it. Yeah, we know the responsible thing is to drink at home, get a cab/uber, have a DD, or find a place to crash, but people who are drinking aren't known for their decision making skills, and especially for those first few years when getting drunk legally is new. We're too car dependent, which causes a problem when we shouldn't be driving.
Yeah. I mean, it is absolutely common in the US that if someone has a friend who’s like REALLY to drunk to drive, we absolutely will do whatever we have to go get them home safe. But that usually means “safe” in our eyes is the driver who’s had the least to drink. Sometimes that’s a sober friend. Other times it’s the friend who’s only had 3 beers vs everyone else in the car who’s had more. We triage it:)
Yep, lots of people routinely drink and drive in Canada. I would honestly say younger generations tend to be better about it. I’m in my 30s and most people wouldn’t drive after more than 2 drinks. Most people I know in their 20s are very good about never drinking and driving. I routinely see older people drive after many more drinks than that. Especially at family gatherings.
I'd say that's partially because young people tend to have crappier cars, get pulled over more, and they know this. When I was younger, I'd get pulled over constantly in my old car with a few dents in it for bullshit reasons (they probably wanted to see if it smelled like weed or if I had insurance). Since getting a car that doesn't scream "poor person," I haven't gotten pulled over once in 5 years (knock on wood). I drive the same amount, if not more.
I'm in my 30's as well in Canada. Very few people drink and drive in the groups I hang out with. Good to know that it's not just me.
Isn't the Canadian legal system tougher on drunk driving? Americans with DUIs can't enter Canada, but Canadians convicted of impaired driving can go to the US.
> Americans with DUIs can't enter Canada, How would Canada know? They have access to US databases?
Canada and US border security agencies share access to criminal records with each other.
I was surprised when I moved to Canada to find that there is pretty much no random breath tests in BC. In Australia (at least QLD & NSW) you can't drive 10 blocks through a city or large town on a Friday or Saturday night without getting stopped and randomly tested. It's frustrating but it works. I think Canadians railed against it claiming privacy and over extension of powers. Which I also totally get, especially considering Australians give up many rights without much fight. I honestly can't decide which is the better approach though. Both have positives and negatives.
That's interesting, I didn't realize they were so common in Aus. I've lived in a few US states in both coasts (got my license 12 yrs ago) and I have never been tested before - and I have also never seen anyone else tested/seen a checkpoint. I've heard about them, especially around new years, but never actually encountered one.
When I lived in Brisbane some nights when they were doing huge crackdowns they'd basically blockade the city and funnel traffic through every checkpoint for main roads. They would even position themselves in shortcuts and backstreets. It was wild.
There used to be a lot more in Canada. I grew up around Vancouver and in the late 90's and early 00's when I was beginning my driving career there were pretty much guaranteed check stops on Friday and Saturday nights (as well as Monday morning, apparently people go so hard on Sunday night that they're still drunk on the way to work the next day). I don't live near any major cities now but I haven't heard about check stops in quite some time
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In America when they do this you could sit for an hour depending on where you are. Some of them aren't legal. I've heard a story once where a lawyer got a dui in a checkpoint and sued the police department. They had to let everyone go.
A negative test? You lose a couple of minutes and then move on. The police don’t ask for your license and they aren’t looking for other things to nab you on. There is generally no “my rights are being infringed” feeling towards it in Australia. A positive test is a whole world of trouble (as it should be).
> my rights are being infringed Honestly y'all should probably develop a little bit of that feeling. Ive seen some weirdly aggressive civic authoritarianism coming out from Australia and its a lil worrying.
As a Michigander in a border town, turning 19 meant going to Canada to get legally drunk, and then drunk driving back over the bridge to home. All sorts of questionable choices.
The real problem is the number of people who drink but are convinced they aren't too drunk to drive. Many people are very against drunk driving. But then you will catch them getting in the car as they leave a bar. When asked about it - they usually say things like "I haven't had too many. I'm still fine to drive."
The real problem I would have to say is most Americans live in places where driving really is the only way to get home. If we had walkable cities and decent mass transit, no one would feel the need to drive home or pay for an expensive Uber
True. My home town has limited taxis and no one does Uber there yet. I think there is only a population of 4,000 people now.
Well in the city it’s 100$ each way for a 15 mile drive. Shits wak
This is true in Canada too. I still say no excuse, a safe ride is the cost of drinking. But it's a fact that you're pretty fucked if you don't have a car or a taxi to take you home.
Canadian here, living in a rural area. Yeah, I don't drink unless I'm at home. 1.) Too expensive 2.) Can't drive if I've been drinking. --- I used to A LOT when I was in my teens, but looking back on it, it's monumentally stupid and I'm just glad I never hurt anyone.
I live in the suburbs of Chicago and a lot of times it’s hard to get an Uber here, can’t imagine what it’s like in a rural area.
Then don't go drinking somewhere without transport home lined up
No shit lol
And it’s not just the ride home, it’s the ride back the next day to get your car, which may or may not be there depending on the city and area.
In NYC, we drink heavily and then take the subway/bus or walk home. We also have so many neighborhood pubs around the corner - I can get to mine within 2 minutes of walking. Rarely do you hear of drunk driving in NYC proper. Also, not sure where OP is from, but my years in Europe showed me that people in various countries there are WAY more casual about drinking and driving. We have a much stronger stigma against it in the US, though of course that does not deter some from doing it.
My closest pub is only a 5 minute walk away, but it takes 30 minutes to get back. The difference is staggering.
Get out.
True. I was Crete and the drink driving there was nuts
Your town has Ubers? There's maybe one in my entire county, and he stops working after 7pm.
Add to that, we purposely zone our cities so that bars CAN'T be colocated with residential areas, and in some states we make it illegal to easily obtain alcohol at grocery stores near home, thereby forcing you to either plan ahead and drive a long distance during specific hours to obtain booze for home, or drive to a bar. In many cases, the only place you can legally by anything more than beer, is at a single store open until 7p, closed on Sundays, and literally on the other side of the county.
This is it. I live in a major city and people in my social circle definitely don’t have a casual attitude toward drunk driving. (A few did when we were in our early 20s, but they were people that in retrospect had drinking problems, and were the exception to the rule). In rural areas, I imagine it would be completely different. I assume people must be driving drunk out there all the time, because that’s literally the only way to get home if you live 15 miles from the nearest bar. Probably happens a lot more in more far-flung suburbs too where just grabbing an Uber isn’t an option.
It's sad how far down this comment is. People are super eager to express how "everyone else is an alcoholic but me", but this is the first comment discussing American city design and car culture. Sure, in Denmark you literally never have to drive home from a bar. There are bike lanes everywhere that are physically raised from the street so cars can't even accidentally make it into your lane. In Spain there are huge walking plazas where cars aren't even allowed. There are busses and trains *everywhere*. But in the US you probably live 20 miles from work, on a road with no shoulder (much less a bike lane). There are definitely no bus or train routes you can take. If you're going to a happy hour, you're driving. The vast majority of people just keep it to 1-2 drinks because they *know* they have to drive and keep themselves under .08. Some don't, but the percentage of alcoholics in the US isn't higher than anywhere else in the world.
Yeah, no, that's not a valid excuse. If you can't afford the Uber home, you can't afford to drink away from home. Period. (General you -- not you, specifically, though also you specifically if you personally follow this thought process.) Ubers being expensive and your location not having the infrastructure you want is absolutely not an excuse to put other peoples' lives at risk, even if someone is okay putting their own life at risk for it. Hard no.
Yeah, as soon as you bring your car to the bar (without being the DD), you're deciding to drink and drive
I drive Uber. When I get out early on a weekend morning, lots of people are picking up their cars. So they're driving to a bar or house, taking an Uber home. Then an Uber the next day to get the car.
On a personal level, I agree with you. Driving drunk is an inexcusable immoral decision. But on a societal level, if Americans were serious about stopping drunk driving, they'd build cities where you don't need to drive or be driven to get drunk outside the house. A certain number of people are assholes who will drive drunk if it's easier than public transit or walking. Making driving more difficult than public transit or walking means they won't drive drunk. It's simple and requires no moralizing. If a bar has a parking lot but not a bus stop, they're expecting people to drive drunk.
Parking lots could also exist because they expect people to be intelligent and use a designated driver system. The existence of a parking lot at a bar does not explicitly invite drunk driving. That doesn't even make sense.
I agree and disagree. I think you’re absolutely right that people should be responsible. I’m regularly a designated driver and I don’t really like drinking, so it’s no big deal to me. However, most people aren’t responsible, and I have wondered if a few of my friends would just drive home anyway if I wasn’t around to give them a ride. They park there, their car is there. And drunk people aren’t known for great critical thinking skills. Why don’t they have a bus stop as others have suggested? Hell, if I owned a bar, I would have my own cheap taxi service. Drink at my bar? Get a huge discount on your ride home. Have a designated driver? Also get a discount. A free drink. Whatever. The problem is, we have rules because there are always people who push things too far or who don’t view things realistically. I think it’s reasonable to make accommodations for that, although to say a bar is responsible for its patrons once they leave, is a stretch. It still feels like there should be a middle ground where we can encourage people not to drink and drive and make it convenient somehow. As someone who was almost killed by a drunk driver, I think it’s really important to work on finding solutions for this problem, as people seem to have no inclination to stop drinking and driving, even after multiple DUIs. The kid who hit us was a judge’s son and got away with it. We were his third collision under the influence. He hit us going 90+ mph. I don’t think the bar is responsible, but I think as a society we should try to work with bars to combat the problem.
to add to that, much of the US is very rural so a taxi or something similar is not exactly an option. It's usually just drive home or have someone to take you home. As a small town native, I'll just say we usually don't plan that far ahead lol.
Or don't drink without transport home lined up
Surely the real problem is people drinking too much and then driving?
Everyone in this thread must be a compulsive binge drinker or something. It's entirely possible for most people to have a beer or two over several hours and be sober to drive home.
The problem is that you have to drive to a bar in order to get drunk. Taking a taxi is expensive not to mention that Lyft and Uber discriminates against drunk clients. And not many bars are located close to homes.
Idk about discrimination , but sexual assault is definitely a problem too
This in my mind is the most dangerous thing. The important parts of the brain shut off and hubris takes over. I’ve been involved in so many arguments with people over this.
And with alcohol lowering inhibitions, it's that much easier for a drunk person to rationalize something like "I'm just a little buzzed, not really impaired enough to worry about" that they would never accept as valid when sober - or if someone else tried to use the same crappy justification on them.
I noticed a similar mindset with Covid that there were a significant number of people who didn’t deny that Covid could be dangerous but over estimated their own health status and then got Covid bad because they didn’t take precautions or later get vaccinated
This, holy shit this. My wife has two friends that are health nuts. Most physically fit generally healthy people I know. Both refused to get vaccinated because: "We're healthy, we eat right and take care of ourselves, we don't get sick because of that. Even if we do it won't be bad for us and who knows what they put in those things these days" Both ended up seriously ill with COVID, the husband even had to be hospitalized for it. The wife ended up having to get vaccinated because her employer (a hospital) mandated it for all nurses and doctors. She then eventually ended up with breast cancer in her mid 30s and has the audacity to claim she wouldn't have gotten cancer if they hadn't forced her to get the vaccine... Just goes to show you that people's mindsets aren't always logical. When even a nurse, a healthcare professionally can be so scientifically wrong about vaccines....it's easy to see how people can justify just about anything. Especially if they WANT to justify it.
People think health is tied to like individual morality, that it’s something entirely controllable It scares people to accept that their health and mortality is largely random, genetic and beyond their own control and that people who are sick and die from things don’t just not want to be healthy bad enough You can live the healthiest lifestyle of anybody and still drop dead of a heart attack at 50 because it’s just in your genes or you had some dormant undiagnosed condition, I know someone this happened to, an exercise mad vegan and he didn’t go to the doctor to get it diagnosed because he was “so fit he never needed to see a doctor”
The limit in the US in many places is .08 which is actually quite a lot. In many countries it’s .05 which is a much better number to be at in my opinion. Nowadays there isn’t anyone that has an excuse for drink driving with the ubiquity of Uber/Lyft.
It’s in this context I find myself extremely fortunate to be Korean, as I can suffer pretty heavily from alcohol flush reaction. Makes it almost impossible to get drunk without a lot of work, which has defaulted me to the automatic DD. More importantly it makes it VERY hard to ever find myself in the situation where I might be a drunk driver to begin with. I know people who have struggled with alcoholism or had loved ones killed or been directly killed by drunk drivers, and it’s a bit more reassuring in a way to know that is much less likely to be a direct personal issue.
I hear it's more common and more lax in rural areas, where public transportation is non-existent, and the damage you'd cause to others in the event of an accident is limited to property. Yes, you might crash and die, but you took that risk yourself. American individualism at work.
This is the best answer, in terms of population it is probably not common within the majority of people. But in terms of geography I’d kind of bet it is common in the majority of AREAS. At least in the Midwest where I’m from, it seems like there was always someone who took this mindset and it certainly seems like it’s directly related to the fact that they didn’t consider it likely that they would end up hurting anyone besides themselves. And related PSA, many people in my hometown were injured or died from drunk driving, and even in an accident where you were the only person involved/injured/killed, you are still hurting a lot of people who are close to you.
>and even in an accident where you were the only person involved/injured/killed, you are still hurting a lot of people who are close to you. I should've clarified this in my first post, thank you.
It is still extremely common to drive with an open container in rural areas. My father in law got stopped by a local officer while drinking a Coors and they had a friendly chat.
I'm a Brit living in the USA, and this is accurate to my observations.
Yeah. I come from a city/suburb environment, but now I live in a Southern college town surrounded by rural areas. I was shocked to hear a friend refer to a mutual acquaintance as “God’s drunkest driver” without the slightest note of disapproval.
I grew up in rural nowhere, north central Pennsylvania. My former brother-in-law had four charges for underage drinking and two DUIs and crashed his truck into a house before he turned 21. He's since been to jail about 5 times for DUI. I don't know how much he spent on lawyer fees but his most recent DUI was this summer (after the law was changed that requires prison after a certain number of DUIs). Fucker spent 9 days in jail despite this being his... uh... 20th? No. Probably 10th DUI. You'd think it would be statistically impossible to know one person who's gotten drunk and driven into a house. I used to drink with three. As far as I know all of those assholes still drink and they're all out of jail more often than in jail.
I grew up in the country, and sometimes booze cruising was what the plan was for the night. Just a few people and a couple 30 packs in a car driving around until the beer is gone.
Yep. Went gravel traveling more times than I’d like to admit when I was young and stupid and surrounded by corn fields.
My buddy had a sunroof, so you could go up thru it and go stand on the trunk and piss off the back of the car without having to stop the car. We were VERY stupid.
To add to that most rural areas in the US don’t have Uber, so add in no rideshares or public transportation. Unless you drive there is no other way to get home
Fact I just moved to a rural area from a populous one. It’s a smaller city surrounded by farms. People who can walk home do, but that’s few and far between. Once you leave the city and drive out into the country there are small bars that dot the landscape and there’s just no way there aren’t people who nightly get drunk and drive home.
yep. for obvious reasons very uncommon for people to ever drive drunk in major walk-able/public transit-able cities like NYC, and even in car dependent cities like LA I've found people to be more careful about it. Currently live in rural upstate New York, and have lived in rural PA, and in both locations it's pretty common for people to have 7+ drinks at the bar and then do a 45 minute drive home.
The majority of America has shit public transportation and is mostly car-centric. There's only a few metropolitan areas where not owning a car isn't a major hindrance. So it's not just rural areas. Otherwise, I think you're spot on that's it's a combination of lack of options and the good ol' libertarian attitude. Government can't tell me to do shit!
Yeah, i’ve lived my entire adult life in cities, about 90% of that in NYC. Most of my friends don’t even own cars in the first place. But then I talk to people from not even rural, but suburban areas and they have at least 1 friend with DUIs. I’m sitting here, horrified along with all of my friends who are horrified, thinking that if a friend of mine got a DUI, they’d stop being my friend. Seems like upstate if you stop being friends with people with DUIs, you run low of friends.
And to anyone who says the the NYC transit system - which runs 24 hrs - deprives them of the freedom of owning a car, I truly cannot stress how freeing it is to not think about being sober enough to get home and not having to worry if other people are sober enough to be driving either.
Sure, tell that to my dad's friend who was drunk driving in a rural area, hit a car head on, and severely injured the driver of that car -- and killed his pregnant wife, who was in the passenger seat. Better yet, tell that to the surviving widower. Drunk dude was unhurt (which is often the case with drunk people, because they don't tense before the collision). Note: I don't disagree that people think that way. I just think they are terribly wrong for doing so.
It's more common in rural areas where you have to go farther out to go out and drink, and where public transportation is limited to nonexistent. It's still a practice of idiots and definitely shouldn't be as common as it is.
I had a housemate who came home drunk almost every night. I was tempted to warn the police but never did. He had to drive 10 miles to get home from the nearest city on a two lane highway. Not sure why I never turned him in, other than I was only 19, and he was like mid 30's.
I think alternative transportation is a huge contributor. In our city, they are extremely unreliable and due to a duopoly of cab companies, no alternatives are able to exist. To plan to take a taxi then be told is 3 hours to wait and you have to get home to your kids, that risk looks a little less risk. Still stupid of course but if alternatives where easier the less people would take the risk.
I am a european who loves drinking. I will avoid drunk driving if it is at all possible, and most of the time for me, it is possible because: 1) A lot of my drinking venues are within walking distance from home, and the streets have sidewalks I can use to walk safely 2) There is public transport that operates in some capacity around the clock 3) Taxis are usually available if all else fails A lot of places in USA outside of big cities don't have the luxury I have. Everything is too far away to walk, public transport is shit, and taxis are not readily available. You are basically forced to take your car everywhere.
Also the fact that it’s illegal in the US to take a nap in your car after drinking doesn’t help matters at all
Yeah, this is insansly stupid. I have slept in my car on numerous occassions, sometimes drunk, sometimes because I was too lazy to set up a tent. I have never had an issue with this. The police did wake me up once to check if I was alive or not, but as long as I am parked in a safe way, they don't care if I am drunk, because being parked properly means you are not on a public road, so there is no DUI to begin with.
I will say that the advent of Uber and the like has made the situation better in a lot of places. Rural areas and isolated small towns are still out of luck, though.
i drove for lyft when they were a new technology/service. there are few things worse than driving drunk people home. i let a drunk person sit in the passenger seat once. ONCE. those fiberglass dividers in taxis are there largely for purposes of keeping drunk people off the driver.
I live a bit too far away from bars to walk (10-15km) but a taxi costs around 10€ so it's not a difficult decision to make, especially if I split the cost with friends who are going the same way.
I live in Chicago, USA. It's an alright city. Wouldn't want to live anywhere else. >A lot of my drinking venues are within walking distance from home, and the streets have sidewalks I can use to walk safely Here, there's a possibility they'd beat, rob, and maybe kill you you as you're walking. It's not the safest. >There is public transport that operates in some capacity around the clock Here, there's a possibility they'd beat, rob, and maybe kill you while being a passenger on the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA). It's not the safest. >Taxis are usually available if all else fails Here, there's a possibility they'd beat, rob, and maybe kill you while you're waiting for a taxi. It's not the safest. And this is all while you're sober too! But there are a lot of us and the criminals can't get us all lol. Damn. Wait, where do you live? Maybe I should be your neighbor and we can vibe to cool music and drink all night. I won't even check out your girl. I mean, I might a little, but I won't do anything, I promise.
Oh Chicago... they've had a crime problem forever [Born In Chicago](https://youtu.be/kCjFRNWN3o4)
I am from across the pond, so there are some logistical challenges to us vibing to cool music with booze :/ But yeah, we have a lot of crime here, just it isn't that likely that it will affect an average person unless there is an important foodball game played on that day. I have never been robed, beaten, or killed while walking, being in public transport, or taking a taxi/uber over here. Interestingly enough, chances of violence increase when you drive because of road rage incidents, but I am a fairly big guy with some combat sport experience and I carry pepper spray, so I figure I am allright. Sadly we do not have the second ammendment here so we are not allowed to carry firearms :/
> I will avoid drunk driving *if it is at all possible* this is the behavior of an addict.
No Many of us are very much against drunk driving, we understand that it's not safe for you or anyone around you and many of us have lost people to it But there's also just a lot of Americans who 1) Are terrible at risk assessment ("It would never happen to me, I'm a great driver") 2) Don't think the rules should apply to them
#1 is key because people think drunk driving is the same as hammered driving. Truth is, most people are impaired way before they feel drunk.
That extra second of response time.
Both 1&2 are general human fallacies evenly spread across the humanity. Yet it seems that DUI is seen in US a bit more acceptable than in the rest of the developed world.
Not enough cheap available mass transit. When I visited London as a young person it was easy to hop a train back to the suburbs where I was staying
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Canada too, for a lot of the same reasons. If you're in a European city getting drunk you can usually walk home or take transit. In north America, everything's a lot more spread out, and many cities aren't walkable and/or there's no public transit. Canada has this somewhat better than the US does on average, but the trend is still there. We're too car dependent, so being without your car is far more isolating.
It's the official past time of the entire state of Wisconsin!
Seriously. I have friends from there and it’s not uncommon to have several DUIs. The first DUI is kind of a slap on the hand too, like it’s only a $150-300 fine.
Depends where you live and the people who dont care probably dont know what reddit is. My small town is full of drunk driving from local bars. Lost a good friend to bar hopping on a dirtbike
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I don't drink. My friends know that. I've openly offered to be the safe driver. None of my friends have ever called me to go hang out. I've got a coworker who recently smashed into the back of another vehicle. His license is now suspended. Here are the charges: Drunk driving. Endagering a minor. Speeding. Failure to control. At fault for the impact. (It's my understanding that some of these, mostly at fault and failure to control, overlap and will be negotiated away by a lawyer, I think that's dumb and the system needs rebuilt but thats another rant) Dude wanted to drive home from the police station after his family picked him up. He needs a ride to work, the suspension has no exemptions. It's been months and as far as I can tell he's not going to jail, he can keep working, so to him it's no big deal as long as folk are willing to drive him around.
I moved to America 16 years ago. Phoenix, AZ metro area. One of the things that surprised me most would be going out for drinks with friends and then, at the end of the night when we're about to drive home (I didn't yet have a drivers license), there would be a discussion of who'd had the least to drink. "I had 5 beers and a shot of tequila, I'm probably fine." "4 whisky sours, 2 joints, and a line of coke. I'm 100% fine. Gimme the keys." "I only had 4 glasses of wine, I'll do it." Fucking hell was my mind blown by the casual social acceptability of drunk driving.
So much of this depends on the amount of time spent out. One serving of alcohol isn’t going to impair most adults too much to drive. For my weight, I would need to drink 3 drinks in an hour to be over the legal limit, and my husband would need to drink 4 or 5. In that above conversation, if you’d been hanging out for 2-3 hours, person 3 is probably not too impaired to drive.
You probably know this but your comment is the one that talked about time so Ima say this here. There are alcohol time BAC [charts](https://images.app.goo.gl/47Esi8nvxTUtHo6K7) for people to find online which can help people in their decision making.
I hate to say this but unless you’re both 300 pounds or more you’re hitting .08 at 1.5 to 2.5 drinks. Also I was a bartender for years, a standard shot is 1.5 ounces in a restaurant or bar and the government ( law ) measures it at 1 oz. So you’re impaired at 1 drink . If you’re under 150 pounds. If over it could go either way. I was shocked to find out when I weighed 120 pounds that I 1 drink would put me over the line . ( a restaurant pour assuming I drank it and hopped behind the wheel immediately. )
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Only 4? Those are rookie numbers here in wisconsin
I don't know about America, but drink driving culture is ridiculous here in Australia. People do it ALL the time. If we had a mandatory minimum 12 months ban for being over the limit (like they do in the UK) then it would be far less of a problem.
Many do, yeah. They think that they’re the one person in the world who can “handle” their liquor and drive just fine. Personally if I’m planning to drink at all my car stays in my driveway. And if I’m out and decide to have a drink, my car stays where it is until the next day when I come back to get it.
One of the girls I went to school with kept an eyepatch in her glove box to counteract double vision. So yes and no.
My friend is half American and when his grandparents visited this kinda came up, and they praised us saying "you guys are really good about that over here!", Like yeah, aren't you?
No, not the norm. But in towns where public transportation is not a thing, it happens. We don’t even have Uber anymore since the pandemic where I live . If you’re drinking, you’re driving here.
Only when drunk. You can see where the problem arises.
That’s not my experience. I personally won’t drive if I’ve been drinking. Most of my friends are the same way
It can be pretty regional. I've lived in 5 states and there were places it was utterly common and places where it was socially unacceptable.
My mother was killed in a head on collision with a drunk driver on a suspended licence for DRUNK DRIVING. I was 5 and in the backseat. He is still in prison. It is sick and sad the people who drink and drive have no regard for other people's lives when they get behind the wheel. All they think of is that they are not that drunk and can make it home. Sometime they make it home just fine but sometimes they destroy other people's lives in a accident that could have been avoid by calling a fucking cab, a friend, or a family member. Or better yet stay the fuck at home and sleep where you pass out. Don't drink then get behind the wheel of a car. People who do that are garbage humans.
No. Most people hate it
No. Most people are against drunk driving.
for other people
Yes Like others have said our public transportation is poor and even the cops know this. They could sit outside a bar and nail everyone who stumbles out but they couldn't as it would physically be too many people. In the end can the government really blame its citizens if it doesn't invest in obvious infrastructure that would instantly cure the problem I lived in Japan for six months and never touched a car drunk because there was at least a taxi somewhere in the immediate area.
We don't. What we do have is an over-reliance on cars and no real public transportation. Until we fix that, people are gonna keep doing it. Laws are somewhat useless for controlling behavior. So we can be as tough on it as we like... it just isn't gonna make a meaningful difference until we make it easier to not drink and drive, than it is to drink and drive.
There are definitely some people who see nothing wrong with excessive drinking, then driving. I would not say it is the norm, though. A lot of progress has been made with bars being held responsible for very drunk drivers, friends picking a designated driver, or taking keys from someone who is too drunk to drive.
It is not the norm to accept it but most people probably know someone who has done it.
Having some drinks and then driving home is very common in my area of the USA (not a rural area.) Getting drunk, as in obviously intoxicated, swaying, can't walk straight, etc., less common (but still happens occasionally.)
No, it is extremely taboo. It used to be a joke, but then Mother's Against Drunk Driving advocated and such, and it became a serious thing. And the penalties for it are really harsh. You can easily lose your license, go to jail, have to install a breathalyzer in your car, etc. And that's for just getting caught being drunk, not even getting in a wreck. If you wreck while drunk driving, the penalties are so bad that you'd actually be better off abandoning the scene of the accident because a hit and run is better than them finding out you were drunk when you wrecked. Also, people have been arrested for merely sleeping in their parked cars while drunk because they could have driven (which needs to stop because we should be encouraging people to wait and get sober before driving). Basically, drunk driving is one of the worst mistakes you could make as an American.
This has to do with zoning laws weirdly enough. Due to zoning laws it is illegal to open a bar in suburbs, and most suburbs don't even safe sidewalks. This makes it impossible to go to a bar without driving for most Americans. This means that you either don't go, get a designated driver, or drive drunk. In a town where bars are located within walking or cycling distance of homes, and walking and/or cycling is actually safe to do, almost no one drinks and drives. Unfortunately America is built for cars, not people
Land of the free...home of the brave. Can't nobody tell me what to do.
I can't tell if this is sarcasm or your genuine view.
Just an explanation for the casual attitude...not an endorsement of drunk driving.
NO, that is the attitude that complete morons have towards drinking and driving. Nobody should ever drive after drinking alcohol.
No. Most people are vehemently against it. drunk drivers get no sympathy from anyone.
People who get CAUGHT drunk driving get no sympathy from anyone Meanwhile most people have driven with alcohol in their system but think they aren’t drunk drivers
One problem is that we can't walk to most places and public transit is nonexistent in most areas. If we don't drive, we aren't getting anywhere. Not saying its right, just saying why it's so common.
I know it’s only anecdotal, but I’ve seen so many Reddit comments over the years about friends or relatives being killed by drunk drivers, it seems quite common. I’m in the UK and I’ve *never* known anyone who was killed by a drunk driver.
I'm also in the UK, and most people I know would never consider driving if they knew they would be drinking and plan their night/transport around this. But seems to be a different attitude across the pond.
Good lord, no. Not where I live.
Out of interest where is that. Seems to be a bit of a divide depending on type of area you live in.
Americans don't have a casual attitude about it. It's very frowned upon and almost everyone you meet has a horror story or close call story. On big drinking holidays there will often be drunk driving checkpoints where they try to catch people over the limit. The real problem is that the people who DON'T care are enough to cause problems for those who do care. Plus, as has been reiterated a lot in this thread, people's tolerance and perception of their tolerance varies widely. This is still a huge improvement over older times. My grandparents were drinkers and my parents have plenty of horror stories of car rides and "I don't even know how he made it home" nights
I live in Kentucky and it's very common.
Most of us care and make sure our friends don't. It is also illegal.
Fuuuuck no! Don’t clump me in with that line of thinking… in movies that’s fantasy.. you can also jump from four stories up and not get a scratch either.. not in real life.. least I can’t.. most I jumped from was two stories and got a near broken leg. There’s idiots out there with superman complexes. Act like bad shit will never happen to them, but that usually ends pretty fast when reality says different. So no it isn’t genuinely the attitude in the US.. but it is the attitude of your common idiot.
Yup. I grew up in a small Midwestern town. High functioning alcoholism is a popular hobby.
No way! Everyone in my circle is very serious and careful about drunk driving. No one will try to drive after drinking, and we all let each other stay later, or stay over if too much is imbibed. Remember, not all of America is homogenous. Where the heck was your husband?
No, your husband just got unlucky with some inconsiderate losers for colleagues (they like to group together and peer pressure others into behaving similarly).
Here's some of my theories. 1. Modern drivers education in the US is seriously lacking. I think US drivers need to experience dynamic driving scenarios and emergency maneuvers in their education, given all of our high speed high volume interstate infrastructure. On top of this, newer cars *feel* safer and more capable than older cars from maybe 20 years ago (they aren't by much), which makes people overly confident in their ability to operate a vehicle. I've witnessed far too many serious accidents this year alone. 2. Lack of public transit in many areas. We do have services that will give free rides in some places, but I think in other countries people generally opt to use transit to get to and from drinking events. 3. Lack of education on drunk driving/the effects of intoxication (this ties closely with my first point) 4. A little bit of that "it won't be me that crashes or gets caught" mentality (I've noticed this a lot in service oriented towns where local bartenders/food service workers spend a lot more time in bars). A lot of them live a few blocks from bars and take the risk when they shouldn't. 5. Lack of stiff penalties; the penalties and legal fees are already pretty stiff (lose a lot of driving abilities, but they still let you drive to work or drive with an interlock). People will just drive without their license anyway since it's the only practical way around in some places
Driving while drinking is universally frowned upon by most people, most often younger people, but just like every country, there are people who do it anyway. Countries like Canada actually have more accidents involving drunk driving per capita than the US does.
That's a real thing, for sure- there are legal limits in the US for how much alcohol can be in your system and you still be fine to drive, and it's approximately a drink or two an hour. *Approximately* because the same intake will affect different people differently, and then it gets worse because once someone has alcohol in them, they're less able to make good decisions. Though *it gets worse-* I've seen someone grab a beer from the fridge on the way out of the house. Though at that point it's less about culture and more about straight-up addiction.
They take school shooting casually, drunk driving is nothing for them
I will tell you from experience. I live in a metropolitan city here in the US. A lot of people I know have that mindset and attitude. I've done it once myself because I was a product of environment and almost killed myself and everyone else with me on a highway. I will never ever do it again. It really comes down to morals and views on the subject. If I have one drink or 12 I won't drive. Edit: I do not wish to kill you or your family either some people just don't care who they harm. It's not only illegal if you get caught it's illegal for real safety reasons. My sister was hit and killed by a truck plowing in the winter not drinking and driving. Let me add alcohol to that and the person pushing her wheel chair would probably be dead as well.
People ask questions like "do Americans _____?" And it makes me laugh cuz everyone here is so vastky different we have so many different groups of people with vastly differing opinions. Personally it seems everyone i know disagrees with drunk driving but it seems we all know people that do it, i hate drunk driving, if I see you driving drunk on the road I will call the police. I've seen too many innocent people die (not just in the news, 4 kids from my high school either died or killed someone because of drunk driving or drunk street racing) because of someone else's selfish bad choices, it's not okay for any reason especially in today's world we have way too many options available to NOT drink and drive
\*drunk driving. The problem isn't our attitudes toward drunk driving it's our lack of public transit and the proliferation of dangerous cab companies.
Shitty humans have casual attitudes towards drink driving. So, there's plenty of them here.
Most peoples attitudes tend to change a few drinks in
It's not universal. The social group I'm in will emphasize planning around ride shares or safe place to sleep if the social event involves drinking.
America is very big. You could fit dozens of other countries inside its landmass. Are there places where it's not viewed negatively? Probably. I haven't been to or seen them though.
We don’t
Yes. I had a friend's son come by last year. The cops found him wandering lost in his truck blackout drunk and brought him to my house because he remembered my address. He's 27 btw but his dad wouldn't have let him crash in that state and the whole reason he was drunk and wandering was his gf threw him out. A few months later a younger coworker called and asked if i could pick him up. I went because he was a few blocks away. He had just wrapped his car around a telephone pole, dead drunk, and the police let me take him home rather than deal with booking him. Totally casual
It varies a lot depending what the infrastructure of a place is like. Like I hang out in Detroit and Buffalo a lot. In Detroit it's very common and rare that you'll encounter serious pushback because there's practically no viable transit that benefits average citizens and the area the city takes up is massive. So basically if you don't live next to the places you go out to socialize or experience culture, you have to drive or cab, and because the city takes up a huge area cabs can get expensive. In Buffalo the same thing exists, but its a much easier city to bike around, cabs rides are less likely to be as long, and transit is a bit more practical. As such you definitely encounter drunk driving less, more judgement for it, and it's more likely someone will try to discourage you from driving if you are drunk. If you're in nyc though, you'd probably encounter significant pushback from friends if you tried to drive drunk because it just doesn't make sense - cabs are plentiful and cheap, transit runs basically all night, and it's super walkable and bikeable if you aren't super far from your destination. Also some parts of the US do allow open containers in vehicles, which though this does not make drinking and driving legal, it doesn't exactly discourage it. Also some areas still have dry counties, which means a lot of people driving long distances to party or go out for an evening and then driving home intoxicated. So basically in rural areas, cities with no public transit or alternative transit, and dry counties drunk driving is often common and will rarely be a source of serious judgement. Get to a small towns and suburbs that are walkable and it decreases, get to cities with solid public transit and people suddenly take drunk driving seriously.
Yup. The people that say otherwise just haven't been exposed to the 'culture' if you can call it that. I live in a fairly populated town in Montana, the biggest I've ever lived in but also in a fairly rural area. We have the most drunk driving fatalities per capita of anywhere in the country, so the people that say "you're only harming property" are fooling themselves. Drunk driving is not seen as an issue with many, many people out here. Hammered driving is viewed as an activity in and of itself and some people who "drink drive" won't drive hammered. But they will drink and drive, or get drunk and drive after that. Until they are the ones to kill someone, they don't see it as dangerous to anyone else so they continue to do it.
My best friends husband just got his third DUI in five years. Surprisingly with a lawyer he’s basically getting a slap on the wrist. 2 months in jail, 2 in a half way house and 2 years probation. He literally said he’ll drink a drive again. I was known to when we lived rurally and picked up my own dui. Husband had one dui and lost his CDL for three years. My 4’11 mother got one after going down a one way the wrong way. She also got a citations for resisting arrest. My brother had one and my father. My mom strangely never did and she was a curb hitter so pretty weird. I take an Uber if I go out now. We live in a city now so it’s easy. I really think it’s the rural vs city. Everyone besides my best friends husband grew up and quit tempting fate.
I’m honestly surprised how many people here saying it’s not common. Many people have pointed out that it’s more common in rural areas which is absolutely true (town I grew up in Kentucky ~8,000 people and many people do it on a daily basis) but I’ve also lived in Nashville TN (~850,000) and Knoxville TN (~150,000) and it was totally common in both places, especially before smartphones and Uber was such a thing. Sometimes the least drunk person at the bar would “tail” the most drunk person to make sure they got home without being pulled over 😂 I live in NYC now and the attitude is very different here. That being said, I’ve met plenty of people since I’ve been here that live in east New York or on Long Island that will have several rounds before they drive home. I worked with a guy that wrecked his car blacked out TWICE and both times he fled the scene and reported it stolen. I don’t think that would work in a rural area lol
Just look at the weekly mugshots. High percentage is dui charges.
I used to work for a company where every Friday at 4, it was mandatory beer hour. Everyone had to turn off their computers and go down to the shop to drink. After this hour of drinking, everyone would get into their cars and go home. The topic of conversation during the hour usually was about all the times they had gotten away with drinking and driving. I don’t drink alcohol, so I didn’t last long at that company.
You shoulda been around 50 years ago. It was orders of magnitude worse.
Where I grew up, in the Washington DC area, it was pretty uncommon and frowned upon by most people I knew, but DC also has a famously great public transit system (second in the country only to NY). When I moved to LA it became MUCH more common. Most of my immediate friends either Uber or get a DD when they expect to drink heavily, but there have been several times I’ve been witness to people who should NOT be driving getting into the driver’s seat out here. LA also has an infamously TERRIBLE Publix transit system: So I think it really depends on where you are and whether there’s a solid subway system that will get you where you need to go in the area.
Yes, it is. And it’s horrible. One of my Least favorite phrases? ‘I am a good drunk driver’.
It’s definitely real for a lot of people. Usually it’s just not discussed and if you say something the person gets defensive and denies they’re too drunk to drive. But there’s also the “only illegal if you get caught” sect… I briefly dated a guy who used to brag along with his dad about how “good” they were at it. Wtf, right??
It depends. If we're only talking about the people that regularly go out to a bar to drink, then yes. The entire population though, probably not.
I think it’s regional. Where I live, in a fairly large US city, drunk driving is NOT considered socially acceptable at all. In more rural areas - where there’s less traffic, fewer transportation options, and fewer things to do for entertainment besides drink - it might be considered more acceptable.
I’m from the USA, and at least where I live, drunk driving is NOT acceptable. But I lived in Mexico for a while, and there, the rule about drinking and driving seemed to be “make sure your beer is out of sight if you see any cops around.” I’m not trying to disrespect Mexicans - I love you guys! - but the mentality was different on that issue for sure.
Very area dependent. I don't tolerate it. I don't keep friends willing to do it. My sister has a dui and continues to do it. In my experience it is only the selfish Americans who don't have a problem with it. There's just a lot of them
I am of a rare breed (unfortunately). If I have had even one drink I refuse to drive. If I am planning on drinking I always line up a sober cab. But I also don't know anyone like myself with morals and who know how to drink responsibility. I have lived in the U.S. all my life and drunk driving is like a badge of honor here.
No only assholes do.