9 ms·

I think a big part of the problem is that America is very large and very car focused. If you can reasonably walk to where you're drinking (or more importantly,

by delecti 10y ago

I think a big part of the problem is that America is very large and very car focused. If you can reasonably walk to where you're drinking (or more importantly, walk home from there), then you're less likely to drive drunk. Many bars in America essentially require driving to and from.

celticninja 10y ago
This doesn't make any sense. Doesn't matter your age if you have to drive to/from the bar and drink driving is illegal, what difference does being 18 or 21 make?
- delecti 10y ago
  Drunk driving goes down quite notably with age > https://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/impaired-drv_factsheet.html https://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/impa... "Among drivers with BAC levels of 0.08% or higher involved in fatal crashes in 2014, three out of every 10 were between 21 and 24 years of age (30%). The next two largest groups were ages 25 to 34 (29%) and 35 to 44 (24%)." It's not unreasonable to assume the 18-20 age group would be a similarly high percent as the 21-24 currently is, if it were legal for them to be drinking.
  - treehau5 10y ago
    And that is why your insurance gets significantly cheaper when you turn 25. And no it's not unreasonable at all to assume that. I am frightened enough as it is by drivers under 25, heck some of that is thinking back to 18, 20, 23 year old me driving.
  - gozur88 10y ago
    By the same token it's not unreasonable to assume if the drinking age were 18, the 21-24 group would see fewer alcohol-involved fatal crashes. What makes the most sense to me would be to lower the drinking age to 16 or so and raise the driving age to 18.
  - ameister14 10y ago
    It's much higher, actually. There's data on it from the 70's and 80's which is the biggest reason the laws were changed. If I remember correctly, yearly drunk driving fatalities quickly went down 60%.
- eloisant 10y ago
  I guess when you're 16 (you can drive at 16 in US) you're more likely to make a bad decision about driving and drinking maybe.
  - celticninja 10y ago
    Weird that it is the drinking they regulate more, where usually injuries are done to your own person and not the driving where you are in charge of a serious amount of metal capable of injuring or killing others. 16 year olds make stupid decisions with or without alcohol.
mhb 10y ago
Isn't this a zoning problem rather than a size problem? Does zoning generally allow having a neighborhood bar?
- delecti 10y ago
  That's not really a relevant question. The problem is that the "neighborhoods" are too large for there to be a location that's walkable for enough people.
  - dsfyu404ed 10y ago
    In college students will a mile or several to/from parties or over the course of a night party hopping. Not walking everywhere is more of a social norms issue. In college towns you see many more non-students walking everywhere. People expect people to walk everywhere in college towns and consequently you don't get bothered by the cops for walking around after a reasonable hour unless you're doing something stupid. In small cities and towns where walking everywhere isn't the social norm nobody does it because walking home from the bar at 2am is likely to get you bothered by the cops because it's not typical.
    - sandworm101 10y ago
      I would add that for any young female, in any town, walking a significant distance home from the bar after a night of drinking should be avoided.
      - InitialLastName 10y ago
        I wish we could build a world where nobody had to be afraid like this.
        sandworm101 10y ago
        That would be like surfing without fear of sharks. If we are going to give alcohol to people, if we are going to allow them to surf, then we must acknowledge that drunk people sometimes do stupid things. Like shark encounters, sometimes those stupid things get people hurt. I don't want to sound like I'm blaming victims, but if we are going to allow people to drink we must acknowledge associated risks. Young drunk girls should not walk home at night. No daughter's father would say otherwise.
_jal 10y ago
I think the car-orientation of the US would greatly benefit from a European-style approach to teaching kids about alcohol. I lived in Germany for a year as an exchange student when I was 16, the age at which kids can drink without a parent present. They can't get a license until 18. The vast bulk of kids there, in my experience, seemed to figure out sane drinking well before they got behind the wheel. Coming back to the US and going to college, I watched kids drinking at 18-19 and driving, because they were inexperienced with alcohol, and in a culture that tends to encourage binge drinking. It'll never happen; the US simply seems culturally incapable of healthy approaches to easing kids through becoming adults on a number of dimensions.
- delecti 10y ago
  > the US simply seems culturally incapable of healthy approaches to easing kids through becoming adults on a number of dimensions I couldn't agree more, and numerous problems are pretty much a direct result.
  - VLM 10y ago
    What we see as problems, the folks in charge see as profits.
  - dsfyu404ed 10y ago
    You could say the same thing about Europe, the resulting problems are just different. The grass is always greener...
    - ASalazarMX 10y ago
      ... on your own lawn?
    - mijoharas 10y ago
      How so?
  - Someone1234 10y ago
    The worst part is that teaching kids about alcohol safely at home, European style, is ILLEGAL in much of the US, meaning that social services might come take your kids if they discover you gave them a glass of wine at Christmas. I grew up in Europe. I was planning on letting my kid try a small glass of wine with food in their early teens. But doing so in the US, I actually risk jail and loss of parental custody. Let that sink in... The US has a really unhealthy attitude towards alcohol that results in binge drinking and excess in college, and society here almost prefers it that way which is depressing. PS - I know many parents ignore these laws, but the point remains, the law makes no exception for parental consent or at home.
djsumdog 10y ago
This. MADD really is fighting the wrong battle and should be a lobby for real mass transit in most major US cities. The idea that America is "too spread out" is a terrible myth. Every America city I've lived it use to have amazing tram systems. They're all gone now; killed by the desire of Ford and GM to see us a car future. There is an amazing amount of advertising that trained Americans to love their cars and consider buses as the means of transport for the poor. More walkable spaces and better community transport; removing the necessity for a car, would greatly reduce the amount of drunk driving more than fines/jail-time/campaigns. It's insane that the US drinking age is still 21 when so many of other countries, from most of Europe to Australia to Canada to Singapore, all have 18 as their drinking age.
- s0rce 10y ago
  I've lived in big and small cities and I am a strong proponent of good public transit, however, other than in big cities that have terrible parking and even worse traffic, cars really are more efficient to get around (except if you want to drink, I don't get drunk much anymore so this isn't a big issue). With cars you can easily go multiple places, close or far, you can transport kids, pets, sick and elderly people with minimal effort. Obviously for many situations in big cities everyone can't just drive a car or you end up with terrible grid lock. Traffic problems now suggest that keeping the old trams around would probably have been better but around the time they got rid of them cars may have been truly more efficient and people lacked the foresight to save the public transit.
- dionidium 10y ago
  No, it actually really is too spread out. My hometown of St. Louis once had an extensive streetcar network, that much is true; but you're missing a key point: that network was almost entirely within the 66 square miles of the original St. Louis City limits. The region is now spread far, far beyond those original borders. Only about 300k of the 2.8 million residents of greater St. Louis currently live within those limits. The historic streetcar network cannot be replicated today precisely because, yes, we are too spread out.
  - djsumdog 10y ago
icantdrive55 10y ago
And Americans kinda overreact when there's a tradegy like a drunk driving accident. And America believes they can solve complex proplems with ham fisted laws, like .08 percent for Everyone. (We all know that person who has one drink and is a mess.) And America gets very used to the extra fees/grants to local agencies brought in by DUI fear/arrests. Texas is the only state I know of that takes a person's susceptibility/tolerance to alcohol in effect when prosecuting a DUI. This .08 for everyone is not the way. I would rather the state, federal government take some of those taxes they slap on alcohol purchases, and put it towards testing individuals when a driver's licence is renewed. People would have diifferent percentages printed right on the drivers licence. Mixing medications would invalidate that number. You could test the individuals at a remote location? "You want to drive, and drink--lets take a test?" We all know there's people who shouldn't be driving after one drink. I know there's people, like my decised father, who was a maintance drinker, that could safely drive after more than a few drinks. I'll get a lot of downvotes, but I'm tired of getting pulled over by cops looking for a marginal DUI. I'm tired of them looking into bars, and following patrons home, just hoping to make a bust. I'm tired of cops thing everyone drinks to excess like they do on their days off. Yes--many do drink heavily, and "the flash of the badge" is still alive and well in America. Did you ever wonder when the profession with the highest rates of alcoholism never seems to get DUI's?

by delecti 10y ago

celticninja 10y ago

This doesn't make any sense. Doesn't matter your age if you have to drive to/from the bar and drink driving is illegal, what difference does being 18 or 21 make?

delecti 10y ago
Drunk driving goes down quite notably with age > https://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/impaired-drv_factsheet.html https://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/impa... "Among drivers with BAC levels of 0.08% or higher involved in fatal crashes in 2014, three out of every 10 were between 21 and 24 years of age (30%). The next two largest groups were ages 25 to 34 (29%) and 35 to 44 (24%)." It's not unreasonable to assume the 18-20 age group would be a similarly high percent as the 21-24 currently is, if it were legal for them to be drinking.
- treehau5 10y ago
  And that is why your insurance gets significantly cheaper when you turn 25. And no it's not unreasonable at all to assume that. I am frightened enough as it is by drivers under 25, heck some of that is thinking back to 18, 20, 23 year old me driving.
- gozur88 10y ago
  By the same token it's not unreasonable to assume if the drinking age were 18, the 21-24 group would see fewer alcohol-involved fatal crashes. What makes the most sense to me would be to lower the drinking age to 16 or so and raise the driving age to 18.
- ameister14 10y ago
  It's much higher, actually. There's data on it from the 70's and 80's which is the biggest reason the laws were changed. If I remember correctly, yearly drunk driving fatalities quickly went down 60%.
eloisant 10y ago
I guess when you're 16 (you can drive at 16 in US) you're more likely to make a bad decision about driving and drinking maybe.
- celticninja 10y ago
  Weird that it is the drinking they regulate more, where usually injuries are done to your own person and not the driving where you are in charge of a serious amount of metal capable of injuring or killing others. 16 year olds make stupid decisions with or without alcohol.

mhb 10y ago

Isn't this a zoning problem rather than a size problem? Does zoning generally allow having a neighborhood bar?

delecti 10y ago
That's not really a relevant question. The problem is that the "neighborhoods" are too large for there to be a location that's walkable for enough people.
- dsfyu404ed 10y ago
  In college students will a mile or several to/from parties or over the course of a night party hopping. Not walking everywhere is more of a social norms issue. In college towns you see many more non-students walking everywhere. People expect people to walk everywhere in college towns and consequently you don't get bothered by the cops for walking around after a reasonable hour unless you're doing something stupid. In small cities and towns where walking everywhere isn't the social norm nobody does it because walking home from the bar at 2am is likely to get you bothered by the cops because it's not typical.
  - sandworm101 10y ago
    I would add that for any young female, in any town, walking a significant distance home from the bar after a night of drinking should be avoided.
    - InitialLastName 10y ago
      I wish we could build a world where nobody had to be afraid like this.
      - sandworm101 10y ago
        That would be like surfing without fear of sharks. If we are going to give alcohol to people, if we are going to allow them to surf, then we must acknowledge that drunk people sometimes do stupid things. Like shark encounters, sometimes those stupid things get people hurt. I don't want to sound like I'm blaming victims, but if we are going to allow people to drink we must acknowledge associated risks. Young drunk girls should not walk home at night. No daughter's father would say otherwise.

_jal 10y ago

I think the car-orientation of the US would greatly benefit from a European-style approach to teaching kids about alcohol. I lived in Germany for a year as an exchange student when I was 16, the age at which kids can drink without a parent present. They can't get a license until 18. The vast bulk of kids there, in my experience, seemed to figure out sane drinking well before they got behind the wheel. Coming back to the US and going to college, I watched kids drinking at 18-19 and driving, because they were inexperienced with alcohol, and in a culture that tends to encourage binge drinking. It'll never happen; the US simply seems culturally incapable of healthy approaches to easing kids through becoming adults on a number of dimensions.

delecti 10y ago
> the US simply seems culturally incapable of healthy approaches to easing kids through becoming adults on a number of dimensions I couldn't agree more, and numerous problems are pretty much a direct result.
- VLM 10y ago
  What we see as problems, the folks in charge see as profits.
- dsfyu404ed 10y ago
  You could say the same thing about Europe, the resulting problems are just different. The grass is always greener...
  - ASalazarMX 10y ago
    ... on your own lawn?
  - mijoharas 10y ago
    How so?
- Someone1234 10y ago
  The worst part is that teaching kids about alcohol safely at home, European style, is ILLEGAL in much of the US, meaning that social services might come take your kids if they discover you gave them a glass of wine at Christmas. I grew up in Europe. I was planning on letting my kid try a small glass of wine with food in their early teens. But doing so in the US, I actually risk jail and loss of parental custody. Let that sink in... The US has a really unhealthy attitude towards alcohol that results in binge drinking and excess in college, and society here almost prefers it that way which is depressing. PS - I know many parents ignore these laws, but the point remains, the law makes no exception for parental consent or at home.

djsumdog 10y ago

This. MADD really is fighting the wrong battle and should be a lobby for real mass transit in most major US cities. The idea that America is "too spread out" is a terrible myth. Every America city I've lived it use to have amazing tram systems. They're all gone now; killed by the desire of Ford and GM to see us a car future. There is an amazing amount of advertising that trained Americans to love their cars and consider buses as the means of transport for the poor. More walkable spaces and better community transport; removing the necessity for a car, would greatly reduce the amount of drunk driving more than fines/jail-time/campaigns. It's insane that the US drinking age is still 21 when so many of other countries, from most of Europe to Australia to Canada to Singapore, all have 18 as their drinking age.

s0rce 10y ago
I've lived in big and small cities and I am a strong proponent of good public transit, however, other than in big cities that have terrible parking and even worse traffic, cars really are more efficient to get around (except if you want to drink, I don't get drunk much anymore so this isn't a big issue). With cars you can easily go multiple places, close or far, you can transport kids, pets, sick and elderly people with minimal effort. Obviously for many situations in big cities everyone can't just drive a car or you end up with terrible grid lock. Traffic problems now suggest that keeping the old trams around would probably have been better but around the time they got rid of them cars may have been truly more efficient and people lacked the foresight to save the public transit.
dionidium 10y ago
No, it actually really is too spread out. My hometown of St. Louis once had an extensive streetcar network, that much is true; but you're missing a key point: that network was almost entirely within the 66 square miles of the original St. Louis City limits. The region is now spread far, far beyond those original borders. Only about 300k of the 2.8 million residents of greater St. Louis currently live within those limits. The historic streetcar network cannot be replicated today precisely because, yes, we are too spread out.
- djsumdog 10y ago

icantdrive55 10y ago

And Americans kinda overreact when there's a tradegy like a drunk driving accident. And America believes they can solve complex proplems with ham fisted laws, like .08 percent for Everyone. (We all know that person who has one drink and is a mess.) And America gets very used to the extra fees/grants to local agencies brought in by DUI fear/arrests. Texas is the only state I know of that takes a person's susceptibility/tolerance to alcohol in effect when prosecuting a DUI. This .08 for everyone is not the way. I would rather the state, federal government take some of those taxes they slap on alcohol purchases, and put it towards testing individuals when a driver's licence is renewed. People would have diifferent percentages printed right on the drivers licence. Mixing medications would invalidate that number. You could test the individuals at a remote location? "You want to drive, and drink--lets take a test?" We all know there's people who shouldn't be driving after one drink. I know there's people, like my decised father, who was a maintance drinker, that could safely drive after more than a few drinks. I'll get a lot of downvotes, but I'm tired of getting pulled over by cops looking for a marginal DUI. I'm tired of them looking into bars, and following patrons home, just hoping to make a bust. I'm tired of cops thing everyone drinks to excess like they do on their days off. Yes--many do drink heavily, and "the flash of the badge" is still alive and well in America. Did you ever wonder when the profession with the highest rates of alcoholism never seems to get DUI's?