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I think if you blow over the legal limit (0.08 BAC) once, you lose your license for life. There is absolutely zero reason why anyone should be driving after drinking that much. You live in some shithole place outside of a city? Go to the liquor store, get your drinks, and invite your friends over. Live in a major city? Walk to your neighborhood bar and have a few there, and walk back home. Even in Atlanta, which is well known for it's absurdly lovely public transportation and urban sprawl, has bars within walking distance of everywhere that people live. I've lived in an Atlanta suburb (Alpharetta) as well, and even in a place with no sidewalks there was a bar 3/4 of a mile away and we walked on the side of the road to get there instead of driving. I live in Midtown Atlanta right now, and there are at the very least 6 or 7 bars or pubs within 1 mile of my apartment. If you can't be assed to walk 15 minutes to get your alcohol, then you shouldn't be allowed to endanger the lives of others by getting behind the wheel after having a good time at the bar. We're moving to Seattle soon, which is one of the most walkable cities in the nation. We choose to live in places that have high walkability because we like to go and pound a few after work or on the weekend with friends. If you live out in the countryside or in some lovely part of a city that is too unsafe to walk or unfeasible, then bring your drinks home from the store and invite your friends over you antisocial bastards. There's zero reason to ever drive impaired. I don't drive after having too little sleep because once, when I was 16 and just getting used to driving alone, I fell asleep at the wheel for a split second and just barely avoided hitting a tree and killing myself. I don't need to have another experience like that to know that driving impaired under any circumstance is one of the most needlessly dangerous things people can do.
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Oct 9, 2014 14:26
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PT6A posted:Are cops really harsh about PI in the States or something? I know a guy who's gotten a few here in Calgary, but that's because he gets really drunk and he tends to have a lovely attitude when drunk. I don't know anyone else that's ever received one here, and I know plenty of people that regularly walk home quite intoxicated (probably 0.15 or drunker). You basically have to be causing a scene of some sort before the cops will even consider giving you a ticket, and then you have to be a prick to them before they'll actually give you one. It depends on where you live, honestly. In my college town, the cops cracked down on public intoxication because they knew a lot of people were underage and wanted that sweet citation revenue from giving the 1-2 combo of public intoxication with minor in possession/minor under the influence so you had to be careful about when you left and the route you took home. In Atlanta, the cops literally don't give a poo poo and would rather you be walking home than driving, and will leave you alone (and in many cases offer to give you a lift back to your place) as long as you're not being an obnoxious rear end in a top hat. They sure as hell will throw you in the drunk tank though if you're so drunk you're stumbling off the sidewalk and into traffic, I've seen that happen myself while going out with friends.
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Oct 9, 2014 15:26
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The rest of the major US cities should be emulating New York City and Seattle in terms of public transit. Seattle is the #1 city for pedestrian safety due to viable public transit options, dedicated bike lanes, properly timed traffic lights, prominent signage for drivers, and actually useful crosswalks. There is no reason why other big cities like Atlanta, Miami, and Dallas couldn't do the same. I am much more familiar with Atlanta, so I can use this as a comparison: In Atlanta, we have MARTA (Metro Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, colloquially known by racist assholes as "Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta" and this will be relevant in just a minute). MARTA operates a heavy rail system and an extensive bus system that goes outside the perimeter (I-285) on many routes. Taking a bus is viable inside the city limits, because it seems like you can't spit without hitting a bus stop. The train is less useful but is still good for getting to some of the more important places in the city (the city center, Peachtree Street, Midtown, airport, Arts Center, Medical Center station for hospitals, etc) without the need for driving. So why don't people use it more often and vote for funding for public transit expansion? Simple: Racism. It's an urban legend of sorts that "those people" ride the bus and train. Poor people. Poor black people. Poor minorities in general. When MARTA was going to expand the train line north to the wealthy suburbs of Dunwoody, Sandy Springs, and Alpharetta, there was a major pushback due to fear mongering that "criminals" (dogwhistle code for black people) were going to take the train north, rob the wealthy white people, and carry their ill-gotten gains back on the train to their crackhouses. I wish I was exaggerating that in the slightest, but I'm not. That was a legitimate fear. The city of Atlanta pushed it through anyway, and not a single instance of MARTA-related theft and robbery of houses was ever reported. But that idea is still being kicked around that MARTA isn't safe (it has its own police force and is the 8th largest police department in the state) and that if you're white, you're in danger if you're on public transit. It's a ridiculous idea but it's the reason why Atlanta, one of the most sprawling cities in the nation, doesn't have anything more than a halfway decent transit system. As Lewis Black said, "And you fuckers in Atlanta have that MARTA gently caress thing. What's the point? It's a subway to nowhere!" and while he's exaggerating a good bit, it's not nearly as useful as it should be. Edit: Funding is also an issue, but that also comes back to the racial problem. The majority of MARTA's passengers are poor minorities and not white people, so the white people in charge of the state don't want to give any funding to something that would help. MARTA receives no funding from the State of Georgia and is entirely funded by a one cent sales tax solely within the Atlanta city limits and rider fares. There isn't a statewide tax because backwoods yokels in the rest of the state would rather disembowel themselves than send their tax money to do stuff for Atlanta (there's a whole issue with Atlanta vs the rest of Georgia which is a completely different problem altogether and by-and-large the non-Atlantans hate the city and vice versa). HonorableTB fucked around with this message at 17:55 on Oct 9, 2014 |
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Oct 9, 2014 17:51
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MARTA turned a profit for the first time ever last year, so hopefully under the management of the guy they've got running it now, it'll see some good expansion. They're already making plans to integrate MARTA with the BeltLine trails and the new streetcar they're installing that runs from downtown to Buckhead.
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Oct 10, 2014 17:41
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Popular Thug Drink posted:MARTA is handy if you stay on the trains. Most Origin/Destination pairs are not along the train line, though. Once you get a bus involved it takes much longer to get where you're going. The best thing MARTA has going for it is that you can get off the train directly at the airport terminal, which is pretty rare for American cities. That is nice, I've used it several times to get to the airport. Seattle's is pretty nice too, the Linc light rail that runs from downtown Seattle to SeaTac airport drops you off and it's a short (5-10 minute walk across a skybridge) to the airport proper. Last time I was out there, from getting off the train at SeaTac to getting to my gate (not counting security time) was maybe 25 minutes, including waiting on the people mover train inside the airport that goes between terminals.
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Oct 10, 2014 18:45
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