Beer and Drunk Driving

I'm starting to get the feeling you had a bad experience with Uber. Care to share so we can all hate them too?

 

I am a pretty active individual and I do a lot of fairly demanding physical activities for work (most notably some hard core caving). All that said: If I am drinking, and I am NOT home, I basically have two MOs:

1) Single low-ABV beer (eg blue moon etc. see my post above) OR
2) I am having a good time with colleagues I never see, and there’s absolutely no intent on anyone driving. At that point so won’t just be lightly buzzed, it full on buzzed, but definitely NOT the dizzies. Either way, do you know what the worst way is (for me) to end that night? Walk 3 miles. What a buzz kill. If I have a good buzz, there’s only 3 good ways to end that night: (1) go straight to sleep, (2) have sex with my wife, (3) with myself. Walking 3 miles would sober me right up. I can do it without any thought in the world, but that’s just the worst ending to my night. THAT is why so would Uber over walk that distance above and beyond anything else.

 

They're just an all-around shitty company. Fuck 'em.

 

Walking and breweries go together in certain cities. During Oktoberfest in Tulsa one day walked 11 miles between downtown and breweries. The next day ended up walking back to downtown from Oktoberfest because the bus situation was a shit show. As long as there is a sidewalk, I am fine for walking

 

See, a couple walking beers, and it helps wind the night down. Walking home from one friends house takes through a large park. I might walk the trails some, sit by the little waterfall for a while, sip a beer, just relax a few minutes. I find the walk helps me get to sleep faster when I get home. YMMV. Shrug.

 

Have to say that overall, I'm mostly encouraged by the responses to this thread.

 

I'm curious what the perception is of drunk driving by the craft beer crowd vs the general bar crowd? My first thought is that buzzed driving, where the person is likely very near the legal line on either side, is pretty common in both groups but that the super drunk drivers more commonly come out of bar crowd. Maybe just my bias?

I'm also reminded of how much this issue has changed in a generation. My dad and uncles would drive drunk as a matter of course. Open containers were not uncommon. My impression of my grandparents generation is that the term drunk driving wasn't even a thing, but cocktail hour was absolutely a thing.

Is my family just a bunch of drunks or is this more common?

 

So many variables. I always just follow my heart

 

To some extent, I find the matter to be self-correcting - the more tasty beverages I consume, the more massive I become and, the more massive I become, the more capacity I have to consume even more tasty beverages. Currently, I have achieved a state of grace in which I am able to session NEDIPA's pretty much all day long with very little apparent impairment. Mind you, I'm so fat I can't wipe my own ass and my friends and family actively avoid me, but that can hardly be helped.

I used to joke that the first time I ever drove sober was when I took my license test but that was way funnier forty-something years ago.

 

I was driving my grandmother somewhere once and she told me a story about my grandfather drinking cognac straight from the bottle while driving cross country to visit her parents. She took over the wheel at some point.

 

And that is currently leading for post of the year.

 

When I was a kid I used to teach self defense to a bunch of cops. The rule of thumb back in the day, was that unless a drunk driver puked on you or pissed you off, you let them off and just followed them home. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad things changed, but different times had different expectations.

 

In about 1974 I was driving back from a crazy group up in Rockingham County. It was about mid-night and I was on Lake Brandt Rd, a few miles from home. I looked around in my Dodge Monaco, my Mom's old car, and see a weird flashing light. The rear view mirror was askew, pointing downward. I straightened it up a bit and saw a sheriff' car just behind with lights flashing. The deputy came over after I had stopped and said, "Mr. Gordon is your front end out of line.? ". I said it had been pulling to the right a bit. i was more stoned than anywhere near drunk and I made the deputy laugh. He told me to be careful on my way home.....

 

That’s really how it should be for all of us. If you think it’s close, you are probably over the limit. Unless you stick to the 12 oz 5% beer per hour or less.

 

Not everywhere.

 

I usually have one or two craft beers with a good meal and call it a day. This is especially true at night as I don't see well while driving at night. Plus, I'm slightly paranoid.

 

There are a few towns where it's legal to drink. It's "legal" in my city if you live here and you aren't a jackass. The cops do frown on bottles, but if you have the common courtesy to pour your drink into some kind of coffee cup or something, they're totally cool.

 

I guess you gentlemen have never had the unpleasant experience of being robbed at gunpoint while walking at night. I’ll take my 5min ride and $9 Uber ride. Don’t think I’m the one epitomizing our failing culture, but hey to each their own! Be safe out there guys and gals, and there are few places I’d think an hour long walk in the middle of the night is safer than a few min cab or Uber ride.

 

I did not mean to call you out explicitly and I should have made that clear. I'm sorry about that.

I'd wager it is the exact opposite. Car travel is by far the most dangerous way to get around. Sure there are some specific areas where it's inadvisable to be walking alone at night. Of course, most of the places that serve the types of beer we enjoy aren't located in those places and most of those venues are also not open until 2 am.

obviously the calculus will be different for women, unfortunately, and everyone should be aware of their circumstances. It's always best to have a buddy! But the general aversion to walking anywhere, which is so pervasive in modern US culture that it's considered noteworthy if an area is "walkable", is a problem. Certainly tied in with other cultural neuroses like our insistence that we always be busy. After all, who has the time to be walking to and from the bar?!