Drink Driving
 

Last night while I sat outside a local bar in Fort Lauderdale there was a terrible car crash where a guy lost control of his Mercedes at high speed, screeched on the brakes (way too late) and smashed into a fire hydrant which was propelled into a wall (never seen a huge chunk of metal "bounce" like that) while he smashed into the wall, bringing it down. The car was an absolute wreck and one of the medics said he should be dead but miraculously he was conscious and able to talk. Luckily nobody else was hurt but 50 feet further and he would have wiped out everyone sat outside the bar.

A friend and I were "first on the scene" and spoke to the guy while the ambulance etc were on the way and you could tell instantly that he was extremely drunk (you could smell it) on top of whatever concussion he now may have had and it just got me thinking a little about the attitude towards drink driving where I live now compared to England.

Obviously this is an extreme - I don't think many people would consider driving at high speeds while blackout drunk but I do find people are way more relaxed about it here. In England, if I was going out for a couple of beers then I'd find a designated driver or get a taxi and there was always a huge stigma and shame attached to driving after drinking. I don't know if it's just this area or the US in general but I find people are relaxed about driving to the bar, having 5 beers and driving home. It was surprising at first but now I'm used to it and I don't think twice about driving when going out unless I know it's going to be a long session.

Has anyone else noticed this since moving here or is it different where you are?

Re: Drink Driving
 

Sadly, as far as I know, it is the same across the whole of the US.

A key part of the problem is that if you are "banned from driving", you are still allowed to drive to work, to college, to take your children to school, to church on Sundays, etc. so not much of a deterrent. Even with all those exceptions it is fairly common to hear of people just ignoring the ban and driving anyway, an offence for which they only seem to get a slap on the wrist. ..... The result of a drunk-driving convicting can be a massive increase in the cost of insurance, which leads to people having woefully inadequate insurance, or driving without insurance. :eek:

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It is scarily prevalent here - basically "don't mess with my constitutional right to exercise the freedom to drive my own automobile whenever I damn well like" - I'm not sure the constitution said a whole lot about cars, but that's by the by....

We have a monthly "dads night out" with a bunch of mainly oil industry types that live around us (kinda sad that a night out has to be planned on a monthly basis - again, by the by:o). There are a mix of nationalities, mainly Brits, Scandinavians and Americans. Invariably the Brits/Scandis carpool or taxi, and the driver never drinks. Invariably the Americans arrive in their own cars, match us pint for pint, then after 4/5/6 pints, get in the car and drive home. When it started, we used to try to persuade them to carpool with us, but it simply did not compute - despite the "drink..drive...go to jail..." ads, nobody really gives a toss about it.

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Is that right? I never knew that - like you say, kind of reduces it to a slap on the wrist, really.
If you cause an accident, and are found to be drunk, is your insurance still valid? Or do the insurance companies have getout clauses?

Re: Drink Driving
 

Same with moms night out. Many drink a horrendous amount and then drive home. I am looked on as the oddity for not doing it.

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I think a lot depends on the odds of getting caught! Anyone can drive your car, so in the larger towns, there is little chance of being arrested unless, of corse, you are involved in an accident or are pulled over for speeding. Back home, more and more police cars are equipped with ANPR cameras and if a driver is banned, the license plate will trigger the system and then they'll get stopped and charged with driving while banned (and probably another DUI too!).

Local police in the US are now getting LPRs (license plate readers), but I'm not sure if they will flag this behavior or not. I'll have to ask the relevant deputies when I see them (I work with the Sheriff's Office).

It's not only a problem here, but in the UK too. I lived in a small town just outside Macclesfield for a couple of years, which had the most pubs per capita in the UK, I believe. The best way for them to stand out was to have lock-ins and the local constabulary would stop in for a drink or three. Many people drove home after a skinful and as far as I know, no-one ever got ticketed!

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Have to admit, I'm surprised by that - is that recently? I thought that the D/D was on the decline in the UK - even back when my school group were getting our licenses (late 70's/early 80's) in small town Yorkshire there was already a distinct stigma attached to D/D, and we just grew up not doing it. The driver always stayed 100% alcohol free and the rest of the group bought their drinks all night to cover the cost of the petrol - although reimbursement was limited by how many "coke and pineapples" the driver could drink in a night.....:huh::unsure::sick:

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:nod: Yes, that's the reason..:nod:;)

Re: Drink Driving
 

We aim not to be on the roads late on Saturday evenings, and to an extent, on Fridays too. My wife had to drive home from the airport after midnight on a Saturday about a month ago, and she said many of the drivers on the beltway, where normal speeds outside rush hour are 70 to 80mph, had poor lane discipline. She had to be very careful.

Equally, though, there seem to be many people who just don't drink socially in the way that most people do in the UK. It's a strange mixture.

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It never seems to be an issue of concern in society. those found to be driving drunk dont seem to suffer much social stigma.

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Agreed, and the "screw everyone else, the constitution says I can do whatever I please" attitude extends to many things. The news yesterday mentioned that in 2011 Rick Perry used his gubernatorial veto to block a state ban on texting and driving, describing it as a "government effort to micromanage the behavior of adults." I kid you not.

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There are plenty round here, in the Bible belt, who don't drink at all.

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That was my strict Methodist grandparents back home, too - they never drank alcohol at all - or at least, not knowingly:sneaky:. They had been known to partake of Great Aunt's "home made grape juice";);) which apparently made my Gran feel young again....

Re: Drink Driving
 

I've lived here for 17 years and in Bournemouth for two and a half years before that, so it must be 20 years ago. I know the licensing laws have changed since then, so everything may well be different now.

I often used to volunteer to be the DD as drink never bothered me. One pint and then on to the orange juice and lemonade or diet coke.

I hate drink drivers and think they should all be shot (or worse!). One idea I had is this. Get caught and your family car is confiscated and sold at auction to pay for the damage caused by you or other drunk drivers. If the car is leased or under a finance agreement, you are left explaining it to the company you owe the money to! The main drawback with this is that people would drive cheap clunkers that wouldn't cost much if taken, which is why I modified it to 'family car'.

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I've lost count of the amount of people who have told me they drive better after a couple of drinks. As someone said earlier, the big problem out here is unlike the UK, there is no social stigma attached to drink driving!

Re: Drink Driving
 

When I lived in Oklahoma, it was seen as irresponsible NOT to drive yourself home. Specifically, walking home was considered madness. The local cops ticketed for 'drunk in public' with great gusto, so driving was the 'sensible grown-up' option (college town; one taxi total). It still makes my skin crawl the state some people would happily drive in.

Nobody seemed to draw any correlation with the fact we lost a student or two per month to the roads :unsure:

Re: Drink Driving
 

It's very sweet that you think people who drive have insurance.

;)

Re: Drink Driving
 

I don't know about the US but generally in the UK, your third party insurance isn't affected but your own vehicle won't be insured (so victims of your madness are covered but tough luck, you get to pay for a hew car from your own money).

Re: Drink Driving
 

The ones I know that do it are mainly middle/senior execs in oil/gas. I'm sure they do have insurance, because I'm pretty sure that in general they are, and they regard themselves to be, upstanding, law-abiding citizens. Apart from the drink driving thing ;)

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I guess that makes sense.

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When we were over in Massachusetts a few years ago we went out with friends for dinner. Generally they are pretty down to earth, however. They picked us up went some where to eat, my friend and I both had a couple of large beers with dinner, we then went back to their house, and he poured us both a fairly generous measure of whisky. After which he drove my wife and I back to where we were staying, what makes this stranger was that his wife hadn't been drinking so could have driven.

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I think most people in the US do not set out to drink and drive after more than a dinner glass of wine. What happens is that since we drive 'everywhere' it is done without much (necessary) thought. Doesn't make it right, but judgement tends to fade after a few.

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Same around here, and if they know you drink, some will attach a stigma to you.

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Where ever we've lived, it's been a problem...even more so when towns have a ordinance stopping pubs from opening up in down town areas so even if they were walkable, with bars on edges of towns, there's no way to get to them and no public transport and even a lack of taxi services.

Though now with those dodgy taxi type app services, should be some option as people seem so unwilling to car pool.

Re: Drink Driving
 

I first noticed this sat in a bar /restaurant having dinner one night and there was a couple of Americans at the bar laughing and high fiving each other and generally being noisily drunk, no big deal in itself until they followed us out of the restaurant, got into their eff off big trucks and both set off home, I was gobsmacked!! Just seems to be the norm here?!

I have my eyes out on sticks driving home on a night just watching for mad/drunk drivers ad trying to keep out of their way! Mind you they're lunatics when sober to be honest!

Re: Drink Driving
 

Don't just bitch and moan everyone - you're not powerless

If you feel that strongly - Do something about it!

MADD - Take Action

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My grandmother was about 90 before she knew wine was alcoholic. Apparently my grand dad knew but never told her. :lol:

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So if it was a problem why did you get in the car with them and not call a taxi? :confused:

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Other than the fact I'm not convinced that there are taxi's in the area. It wasn't so much a problem, in that when looking back on it we were puzzled as to why his wife who wasn't drinking didn't drive instead. As others have said they probably didn't even think about it since there is no where they can drink within walking distance of their house.

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So that justifies the drink-driving then. Now we might as well close the thread. :rolleyes:

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Explains the attitude perhaps, justifies it no. Although to them it probably does. The closest I've gotten to discussing this with them is asking if there is a bar that they can walk to, the casual response probably said more than the actual words.

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No it doesn't. But I have often wondered if folks in the UK had to go at least three or four miles to find a drinking hole if more of them would find drunk driving acceptable.

The practice does need to be stigmatized.

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Part of the problem with the lack of stigma is that people take it very badly if you either refuse to ride with them, or try to stop them driving themselves on the grounds that you think they've had a few too many. I mean, that's never an easy conversation to have back home, but I found it significantly more difficult here. It's starts as jokey-jokey, not understanding any possible objection, to taking grave personal offense. I learnt to keep my mouth shut, but jeebus, if anything had happened... :unsure:

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I don't know about folk in general, but I do know that where we grew up, our regular watering holes out of town country pubs 10+ miles away, and that didn't force us into drinking and driving - it forced us into that old Pre-K skill - "sharing" the responsibility of being a designated driver....

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This is 'Murka. We don' share here.

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Confirmation bias plays a part. They were fine last time. Besides, they weren't really drinking not like those other guys, those are the ones you really need to watch out for...

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Exactly. We always had a designated driver when we went out. I don't know anyone who takes drinking/driving as a joke. Which does surprise me that you all have run in to so many peeps who do...then again, I suppose it really shouldn't surprise me, sadly.

Re: Drink Driving
 

I wonder if it is a State thing? Here in Texas it seems 'the norm' to do it from my observations, maybe it's different in the other states?

Going slightly O/T here, but the phone/texting thing drives me crazy here. Everybody seems to be either texting or talking which IMHO is just as bad, if not worse than drink driving. They keep trying to stop it but Rick Perry vetoed thefts attempt saying more or less on the lines of "it's within your rights to be able to communicate whilst driving" :(:banghead:

Re: Drink Driving
 

Agreed on texting... Not understanding the issue with talking.

Re: Drink Driving
 

We have friends who live about 3/4 of a mile from us, who throw excellent, semi-regular parties. They start about 3pm, end some time the early hours of the next day, and we all drink steadily throughout until we get to the downing shots and singing very loudly along to Paradise By The Dashboard Light stage of the evening.

Every time, the others comment how cute and 'good' we are, to have walked there, for 10-15 minutes, in our ideal Arizona climate. Every time, they fall into their cars and drive home - only a couple of miles through dead quiet neighborhood streets, but still...

A bar/restaurant opened up about 3 miles from our dull Stepford suburb. I think we're keeping it going single-handed - we've been there pretty much weekly on our bikes, ecstatic with having a non-driving place to drink at. There are gratifyingly a lot of other bikes too; it's almost European-feeling!