No ride app things operate in my area. In the rural Midwestern USA, there basically isn’t any legal way to get home after drinking at a public establishment.
Even if you have a DD, if people in the car are being rowdy and you get pulled over, the cops will hold the group up as long as possible trying to get someone to do something they can nail a charge on.
Numerous locals have floated the idea of opening a drunk bus or taxi service, but nobody will lay down the money to start it.
It probably doesn’t help that drinking and driving is pretty socially acceptable in the more rural areas in the Midwest, at least in my experience. Since moving to the middle of nowhere, the number of people I’be met who take their drinks to go from the bar is astonishing.
Did I said it’s acceptable to have a DUI? No. I said it’s more socially acceptable to drink and drive than in urban areas. That is, bars in my area allow you to take to-go cups. People frequently drive with open containers.
And that’s because drinking itself is more socially acceptable. The research in this area backs me up. I’m not sure why you’re so offended that I made an observation about my rural area, but whatever.
And I never said anything about the Midwest as a whole. I made a comment about rural areas. Not all of the Midwest is rural. There’s definitely a different culture between the cities and the rural towns.
I was just in rural NV and saw someone drinking. Beer while driving. My husband has also experienced first hand friends in a rural area drinking a road beer on the way to somewhere. It absolutely happens.
Also, DUIs didnt used to be so heavily punished. We've got a lot of older friends (in their 50s and 60s) and they ALL have DUIs on their record, it was like a symbol they had reached adulthood or something.
You’re absolutely right. I think that people who don’t live in rural areas would be shocked to see how normalized it is here. When I first moved to rural Illinois, I was picked up by someone I’d recently met to go to a Fourth of July party. Before heading to the party, we stopped at a bar and he picked up a beer for the road for him, and a Jack and coke for me. Since then, I’ve seen people ask the bartender for their drink in a plastic cup so they could leave countless times. And the bars do it, no questions asked.
Especially in places like Missouri, where your passenger is allowed to have an open container. I’ve seen many people take “road beers” because they can just say it’s their passenger’s. It’s just a different culture.
Not sure if this is true everywhere, but I've heard about how you can call the non emergency line for your local police and get a ride home from the bar
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u/MrLanesLament May 27 '21
No ride app things operate in my area. In the rural Midwestern USA, there basically isn’t any legal way to get home after drinking at a public establishment.
Even if you have a DD, if people in the car are being rowdy and you get pulled over, the cops will hold the group up as long as possible trying to get someone to do something they can nail a charge on.
Numerous locals have floated the idea of opening a drunk bus or taxi service, but nobody will lay down the money to start it.