It isn't that, the cab rides are never just $20, and often there are no cabs at all. The USA just has crappy non car transportation options. And it isn't just an hour walk in many places, but a few hours walk on dark streets with no side walks. When I was living in the Deep South, I sometimes had to take people home 20+ miles out in the middle of nowhere.
I used to think the same - I've lived in plenty of places with no public transportation. No choice, I'd say, bemoaning the lack of decent public transport.
But then I was in a similar situation off in a small town in Norway. I was at a 80th birthday party in a small town. Most of the attendees were drunk. Everyone already knew someone to take them home, and organized themselves accordingly, some waiting a bit for the sober driver to return empty. A few found someone at the party (my spouse)- and then proceeded to drink. It was nearly surreal to be in the situation.
The truth is that in the states, it is OK to say, "I've only had X beers, so I'm ok to drive." IT is socailly acceptable behavior. And no one really keeps track most times, so if they seem sober enough to us or we know better, we'll let them go. The acceptable BAC level is much lower here - one beer can send you over the limit - and penalties are harsher, so that could be a major factor as well.
That was one of those things my Norwegian spouse made sure I knew beforehand. It is .02 or something like that, and I believe it is measured slightly differently.
He's also said that I can get penalized - through loss of license and other means - just by being a sober passenger with a drunk driver. It benefits me to make sure the other person is sober.
If their field equipment is anything like SCRAM bracelets (same basic technology as a Breathalyzer) they're cutting all sorts of corners (demanding precise readings out of sensors that are running well outside their recommended operating environment with less calibration than recommended) and throwing false positives left and right.
Drunk driving penalties are too stiff to play fast and loose like that.
In Australia, we're breathalyzed and if it's positive we go back to the police station/mobile testing unit for a blood test, so the breathalyzer is really only an early indicator.
> Vidar Refvik, director of police at the Justice Ministry, said police will use the same combination of "breathalyser" and blood tests to enforce the new law as they did the old one. He predicted the lower limit will yield anywhere from 1,000 to 1,500 more arrests, a rise of about 15-20 percent.
That I'm not sure of, but I don't think so. Assumedly, the sober person is supposed to have the wherewithal to understand the danger the drunk driver is putting themselves and others. On the other hand, the drunk passenger might well be more drunk than the driver and be too impaired to make that judgement.
Sorry for that confusion. I quite understood and took it as a "collective thought", for lack of better words. I've heard the excuse from folks quite often and always thought it was a bit ridiculous, especially with the sideline, "but it isn't good to drink alone!". My personal solution was better public transport.
It's actually still .08, not .05 (yet). It will be in about 1.75 years from now if there's no successful repeal before then. Given the LDS majority in the state, good chance it will stand in some form.
This is the least important issue of all time but somehow it is getting the most press. It should just pass and be done with. By the way I get annoyed when people say LDS is the majority here - LDS only makes up 41% of the entire state, and closer to 30% in SLC. The citizens aren't voting on this bill anyway.
For anyone looking into this, the first sentence of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Utah#Religion literally says "A majority of the state's residents are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church)."
The lowball estimates of 41% come from things like the following: "Professor Tim Heaton, who studies LDS demographics for church-owned Brigham Young University, says the county numbers probably come from church membership rolls, and that between half and one-third of those people are not active in the faith. If that's true, then, at most, 41.6 percent of Utahns are church-going Mormons." (2005 source http://archive.sltrib.com/story.php?ref=/ci_2886596 ) It's at least slightly nontrivial to decide on the right definition, but I think church membership is a perfectly fine measurement.
As such, almost every other publication and measurement supports the "obvious" claim that Utah has a Mormon majority of (60+some)% and even Salt Lake County may have a (50+epsilon)% Mormon majority.
> By the way I get annoyed when people say LDS is the majority here
Are you annoyed that the entire state was founded by LDS pioneers? Without the mormons, Utah would be west colorado wasteland or another desolate, sparsely populated state like Wyoming.
And 41% can be a majority depending on how you break down the remaining 59%
> I'm only annoyed that people have been stating that same old statistic which hasn't been true for at least a decade.
Do you have a source? Wikipedia seems to still support the "same old statistic" in a lot of ways and indicates by all accounts an LDS majority in Utah.
I live in one of the few areas of the US that still doesn't have ride sharing services -- upstate New York, where they are banned and still being debated in the state government[0].
I also live in an area where there are 4 colleges and universities in two towns within 10 miles of each other. I went to one of these colleges, and have seen what people do to get to and from the bars first hand. There's one taxi service that I'm aware of, and they charge $30 to go between the two towns, one way. It's a rural area and most roads have speed limits of 55 MPH. Most of the college students are not locals and don't know the roads. Our winters are also harsh and make for dangerous driving conditions even without alcohol. The blotters are full of DUI arrests, accidents, and deaths.
Therefore, unless I have a real need, I don't drive between like 9 PM and 4 AM Friday through Sunday. Why they still haven't passed legislation to allow Uber/Lyft here, other than partisan bickering, I have no idea... I have no doubt that it would help tremendously.
Hahahaha, was it that obvious? I grew up around here and graduated from one of the four schools (gotta stay a little anonymous) in 2009. I'm not sure why I'm still here, really.
Fair enough. To answer your question no, not much has changed. There's a knockoff Chipotle restaurant in both towns now which is pretty good. Pretty sure the Tick Tock is closed for good. And...that's probably it.
Makes sense, but if you know that your only way back home is your car and you still pop the cork, you're acting like a bad person in my book ("hitting a child" level indeed).
That's fine, but you're not going to change social mores overnight (perhaps ever). The fact that ride sharing apps are helping is a huge plus in my book.
Maybe the fact that there are no buses and cabs at night is because people are driving home from bars anyway?
Here's the thing: it's not that we have great transportation, what we don't have is bars and restaurants pop up in some random spot next to a road, with a big parking lot in front. If you build a restaurant like that, you kind of already made clear that it's a restaurant for people in cars.
I lived in a college town in the states. The popular bars were generally around campus or in the downtown area - both places known for having too little and/or inconvenient parking. Folks drove nonetheless, however. Only a portion of patrons lived or worked in the area, the rest had to travel. This is really more key, I think, than the lack of parking spaces. A good number of folks have to travel outside of walking range to go to any such establishment.
Most bars in the suburban US don't stand alone; they tend to be accompanied by other restaurants and strip centers. I'll post a few Street View links for the northern suburbs of Dallas:
https://goo.gl/maps/AfQX2VDpYaA2 - The Draft House, Far North Dallas. Note the strip center that contains, among others, a sushi/Thai food place, a pizzeria, and a food mart. (as a side note: I used to go to the Draft House regularly but stopped after management changes ran it into the ground)
https://goo.gl/maps/bmSsv6ZgGyQ2 - The Irishman, Far North Dallas. If you're not careful, you might not even notice it among all the other places there.
https://goo.gl/maps/kEdHh41QAJF2 - Lonestar Grill and Sports Cafe, Richardson. In the middle of a strip center with a freestanding Dickey's. If you don't see it, look waaaay in the back, just to the right of the Dickey's.
https://goo.gl/maps/Fy946RDP6Ly - The Hub & Ron's Place, Addison. Next to a UPS store and a whole bunch of other shops. The two bars are connected; the logo for Ron's Place is an R inside a square.
Having frequented all of those places sans Lonestar, I can attest to their being plenty of parking in most cases (draft house a bit scary late w/ the clientele, and the hub you may have to park a bit off to the side but not too bad). Sadly, by those links you have described the problem: distances. Even with Uber's cheap cost, it is still prohibitive to hail one for a 20 min drive. HH for most companies in these areas include coworkers who may live 40+ miles from each other.
That's the reason there are no cabs and I don't blame cab drivers. They don't get paid to sit around 40 minutes to find a passenger. I'm surprised that finding an uber in one of those places is not difficult either.
Outside of the US, a lot of the population is very condensed (well the US is to some degree) making cabs and public transportation much more efficient/effective IMO.
With Uber the driver can sit in his middle-of-nowhere house (or work on his garage, yard, etc.) for those 40 minutes with his driver app on, and get in his car only when the app alerts him that he has a fare. This will take the driver to a central location where there are short waits and frequent fares.
I remember reading a post from an Uber driver in a small town. Basically, instead of idling, he'd just use his house as a waiting area. So instead of just waiting around, he'd be at home, doing other stuff until he got an rider. Then he'd get in his car and drive them where they needed to be.
That only works if trips are originating from nearby. I've been to some shady Louisiana bars out in the middle of nowhere, I'm not sure how even Uber would work out there.
If he lived next to the bars or downtown that would probably be reasonable, but I can't imagine he would bring in too much money (as opposed to living in a large metropolitan area).
How much wear and tear for a robot that is just sitting still listening to the internet uplink? If only every tenth of all cars currently stored on public parking would be hailable robots you would get very comfortable availability even in the remotest village. Occasional idle rebalancing drives would probably be less common than the idle leg of current “go pick someone up“ or “bring someone somewhere and return" trips.
If robot taxis happen, they won't be just like regular taxis without a driver. The mix between investment, hourly cost and per mile cost would change a lot, making entirely new business models possible and shifting the optimization peaks of existing ones.
Personally, if I would somehow happen upon a dozen robot taxis to turn into a business, I would select elderly people in a rural area as my target audience. Not your typical early adopter and quite some natural churn (short age window between should not drive anymore but still able to take care of themselves), but you get awesome ad targeting if you put out flyers in the doctor's waiting room. Oh, and you need to hire the one taxi driver who currently serves the doctor's appointment market in that area as your support guy who chats all the nice old ladies through the introductory phase over the car's hands free.
Except that you are not paying for "gas, wear and tear & depreciation" when you call a taxi. You're not even paying for the human driver. You are paying for the monopoly.
Even if calling a driverless car cost more for remote areas, it would (or at least could) still cost a fraction of the cost of a taxi. $30 instead of $120 for a long distance drive is totally reasonable.
$30 for a 8 mile trip when your making $7hr is really hard on the budget. It might be way cheaper, but it is still unfordable for the median person in a rural area.
You may have missed it, but my grandparent's comment - and my reply - were regarding driverless cars. There is no driver making $7/hour in an autonomous driverless car. (Off-topic aside: no taxi driver makes $7/hour). There's a reason an easy trip costs $50-80 in a taxi, and it has nothing to do with human labor or maintenance of the car. A driverless vehicle will not have to make $100+/hour to make up for maintenance costs.
Nor do driverless cars have to make up for "idle time". The only legitimate counter argument as to why a taxi should earn as much as they do is that they sit around not making any money for 10-60 minutes at a time. However, that goes away with driverless cars, and any excuse to charge exorbitant prices the way taxis do completely vanishes.
The real question is why work for so little money? The federal minimum wage is $7.25, tipped employees can make less per hour but only if the tips exceed the minimum wage for that time, but that isn't the real wage floor consider Walmart[0] has a minimum wage of $10.00 nationally and the average time between hire and promotion(with raise) is 3 months with an average fulltime compensation of $13.38 an hour. Construction labor, house cleaning, call centers and even dishwashing in non chain restaurants tends to pay similarly, I really don't know why anyone would make the minimum wage for any extended period of time, nor how employers offering it manage to find anyone given the competition.
I think the issue is I and my peers never really received any education about how to make it in the world (outside of simply "go to college"). If you are working a minimum wage or low paying job you really have two jobs the second being constantly searching for and applying to better opportunities.
Also I suspect another issue is the cliffs for government benefits. If you work between 45 - 60 hours a week for $12 - $13 an hour like I did a few years ago you aren't exactly well off yet programs like Obamacare will fine you for not buying health insurance that you can't really afford. Similarly free clinics will turn you away and I wasn't able to find a single aid program that you would qualify for except about $20 a month in food stamps. I figured out the costs once and there are a great many situations where a rational actor would simply work less or for less money and do better economically.
Yep, wages don't amount to everything. I don't know how Walmart is nowadays, but a few years ago I had a few friends working at one being stiffed an hour or two underneath the weekly "full time" amount so they didn't need to keep up with certain benefits. And making them work unpaid overtime and bullying them into not reporting it or clocking in.
People bring up legal recourse for these situations, but realistically, it's very scary when you're in that scenario and have to actually deal with getting underpaid or not getting paid for a while but having your dignity.
About the tipped wages mentioned a couple comments up, from my experience working delivery, that's a great way to get yourself fired. Because I guarantee you all the employees won't go in together on saying it, you're basically telling the management "I don't get tipped as much as everyone else" which is great grounds for poor performance, it's a catch-22.
I lived in Beijing for 9 years and never had to worry about a DUI since I didn't even own a car. Some bad nights (no taxis available) I walked home for an hour or so, no big deal.
Population densities in the US suck, and everything is oriented around personal cars. Totally different things.
People downvoting me obviously haven't had anyone close killed by a drunk driver. Disgusting. Simple solution if you can't get home without driving: don't drink.
Your comment just isn't very constructive. Everyone knows that driving drunk is moral reprehensible. That's not the point.
I'm sorry for your loss but I could just as easily say something along the lines of
"Driving in general is not an excuse. People downvoting me obviously haven't had anyone close killed by a distracted driver. Simple solution: don't be distracted and drive."
You're not wrong, but as long as we continue to have an attitude of "drunk driving is just wrong so we shouldn't do anything because people who drive drunk are simply bad people" we will never create a proper solution and people will continue to die needlessly.
It's not an excuse, but understanding people's impetuses (that are more common than you probably believe) will help us in creating solutions and getting rid of this problem once and for all.
The post I replied to sounded like it tried to justify it, like there was no other choice than to drive drunk. I also don't agree with you at all. You speak like it's some kind of technical problem that needs to be disrupted. If you drink and drive you're messed up and have big issues. Of course we should try to find ways to reduce it but you can never blame the system.
I'm not saying you don't have big issues if you drive drunk but that statement is obvious and does nothing to solve the problem. No one is going to start accepting drunk drivers as good people. But maybe we can understand why people drive drunk and can fix that underlying cause. After all, all I want is for fewer people to drive drunk.
What you mention are circumstances and excuses that doesn't change anything. The point of the parent post was that in some countries (mine is Norway) you just don't do it, full stop.
Very hypothetically, if someone else got you drunk in the middle of nowhere without your knowledge and there are no taxis available, and it's freezing outside so that you can't sleep under a bush, then not letting you stay the night at whatever house you were in would be similar to murder I guess. A drunk person driving is just off the table and everyone understands it.
