Go on, have a pint!
Just after I first moved to Austin a friend of mine got a ticket for driving with an open container.
"Good god, man!" I exclaimed, flailing to my feet Kramer-like, "what the hell was in the container?" My mind reeled at the possible unsealed contents deemed dangerous enough to miter official attention. Radioactive isotopes? A lethal virus? Temperature-sensitive emergency medical supplies? The next Harry Potter manuscript?
"Beer."
I looked at him for a minute. "Eh?"
"I was drinking a beer on the way home from work."
"That's illegal?" I asked incredulously. See, no open container law exists in Britain or any other lands likewise lacking such an absence of fair play.
"It's only like a $75 ticket." He said, almost apologetically.
"But, but why is it illegal?"
"Erm...I guess to prevent drunk driving."
I eyed him gravely, "you're taking the fucking piss, mate. No reasonable population would allow such an inkhorn law to pass. There'd be rioting. If you're gonna try to wind me up at least attempt to sound semi-plausible."
He carried on wistfully regardless; "Used to be, in Texas, there was no open container law. Now there is."
"Okay, I'll bite. How is it supposed to prevent drunk driving?"
"I guess people drinking while they're driving are more likely to be drunk."
"More likely? More likely?" I tasted the word as if it was dipped in dogshit, "so your politicians are in the business of punishing people for crimes they might commit?"
"It would appear so."
Roll over Lincoln and Washington.
I sat down, aghast. How could this be? Isn't America the Land of the Free, Home of the Whopper? It says so right there on the bloody poster! There's not much free about not being allowed to drink a beer in the truck on the way home from work on a Friday, now fucking is there? Had I been duped by international propaganda before I arrived? How did this law get past the pointing and laughing stage?
So I googled it.
Apparently, the federal government coerced states into enforcing this stunningly pedantic tenet by threatening to withhold federal aid if they didn't.
Whoa. Blackmail.
Then I went on to read this complete fiction:
The logic behind the open container law is indisputable. Analysis of motor vehicle crash data clearly indicates that alcohol plays a significant factor in most fatal accidents. Removing concurrent accessibility to alcohol while operating a motor vehicle is certainly in the best interest of public safety for our State and its people.
Slick. And very 1930's Germany. The first sentence is an outright lie; they go on to use the word "alcohol" instead of "intoxication" as if the merest whiff of an adult beverage will have the average driver drunker than a Dallas Cowboy; the word "concurrent" is redundant and they're confusing the word "while" with "before", which is fucking grade-school stuff. And we elected these remedial clunkers to power? We should be flogged! Get 'em out!
I hope you can see what I'm getting at here. Driving while drinking is not a problem. Never has been; never will be. Driving drunk is the problem. The former does not necessitate the latter.
Drinking:
does not equal drunk:
As for curbing drunken accidents, let's explore that theory. Great Britain, for example, with no open container law but stringent drunk driving ones, has a per capita inebriation-related vehicular fatality rate FIVE TIMES LOWER than the USA, despite higher speed limits.
How can this be? Could the open container law actually stimulate driving drunk? Maybe Americans get their wobble on before driving in order to avoid the open container ticket? Maybe Americans drive more, or are worse drivers?
I'm sure there are a number of factors, but I reckon the pre-drive binge to be the main culprit, having witnessed it extensively on Friday afternoon building sites. Personally, I eschewed such behaviour and drove home with a beer anyway, even if I didn't want one (unlikely), in order to flaunt, like a scallywag, this mandated insult to my personal responsibility.
"Personal responsibility" is the key phrase here, I think.
I believe lawmakers should pay more attention to the whims of the masses rather than the inadequacies of the lower behavioral echelons, otherwise we'd be allowed to sue the bartender when we fall in the canal whilst staggering home from the pub.
Fucking what?!
"Good god, man!" I exclaimed, flailing to my feet Kramer-like, "what the hell was in the container?" My mind reeled at the possible unsealed contents deemed dangerous enough to miter official attention. Radioactive isotopes? A lethal virus? Temperature-sensitive emergency medical supplies? The next Harry Potter manuscript?
"Beer."
I looked at him for a minute. "Eh?"
"I was drinking a beer on the way home from work."
"That's illegal?" I asked incredulously. See, no open container law exists in Britain or any other lands likewise lacking such an absence of fair play.
"It's only like a $75 ticket." He said, almost apologetically.
"But, but why is it illegal?"
"Erm...I guess to prevent drunk driving."
I eyed him gravely, "you're taking the fucking piss, mate. No reasonable population would allow such an inkhorn law to pass. There'd be rioting. If you're gonna try to wind me up at least attempt to sound semi-plausible."
He carried on wistfully regardless; "Used to be, in Texas, there was no open container law. Now there is."
"Okay, I'll bite. How is it supposed to prevent drunk driving?"
"I guess people drinking while they're driving are more likely to be drunk."
"More likely? More likely?" I tasted the word as if it was dipped in dogshit, "so your politicians are in the business of punishing people for crimes they might commit?"
"It would appear so."
Roll over Lincoln and Washington.
I sat down, aghast. How could this be? Isn't America the Land of the Free, Home of the Whopper? It says so right there on the bloody poster! There's not much free about not being allowed to drink a beer in the truck on the way home from work on a Friday, now fucking is there? Had I been duped by international propaganda before I arrived? How did this law get past the pointing and laughing stage?
So I googled it.
Apparently, the federal government coerced states into enforcing this stunningly pedantic tenet by threatening to withhold federal aid if they didn't.
Whoa. Blackmail.
Then I went on to read this complete fiction:
The logic behind the open container law is indisputable. Analysis of motor vehicle crash data clearly indicates that alcohol plays a significant factor in most fatal accidents. Removing concurrent accessibility to alcohol while operating a motor vehicle is certainly in the best interest of public safety for our State and its people.
Slick. And very 1930's Germany. The first sentence is an outright lie; they go on to use the word "alcohol" instead of "intoxication" as if the merest whiff of an adult beverage will have the average driver drunker than a Dallas Cowboy; the word "concurrent" is redundant and they're confusing the word "while" with "before", which is fucking grade-school stuff. And we elected these remedial clunkers to power? We should be flogged! Get 'em out!
I hope you can see what I'm getting at here. Driving while drinking is not a problem. Never has been; never will be. Driving drunk is the problem. The former does not necessitate the latter.
Drinking:
does not equal drunk:
As for curbing drunken accidents, let's explore that theory. Great Britain, for example, with no open container law but stringent drunk driving ones, has a per capita inebriation-related vehicular fatality rate FIVE TIMES LOWER than the USA, despite higher speed limits.
How can this be? Could the open container law actually stimulate driving drunk? Maybe Americans get their wobble on before driving in order to avoid the open container ticket? Maybe Americans drive more, or are worse drivers?
I'm sure there are a number of factors, but I reckon the pre-drive binge to be the main culprit, having witnessed it extensively on Friday afternoon building sites. Personally, I eschewed such behaviour and drove home with a beer anyway, even if I didn't want one (unlikely), in order to flaunt, like a scallywag, this mandated insult to my personal responsibility.
"Personal responsibility" is the key phrase here, I think.
I believe lawmakers should pay more attention to the whims of the masses rather than the inadequacies of the lower behavioral echelons, otherwise we'd be allowed to sue the bartender when we fall in the canal whilst staggering home from the pub.
Fucking what?!
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