Road Dogs
Road Dogs is a show about the road and everything on it. Join hosts Omar (car lover) and Cheryl (car hater) as they try to reconcile their differences.
Road Dogs
Drunk or Drive?
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When everyone's getting a DUI, who's getting let off the hook? A conversation with friend of the pod Marian Jones.
Okay, we have a special guest with us tonight, Cheryl.
SPEAKER_03Yes, we do. It's my dear friend Marion. Marion Jones. Okay, hi Marion. Hello. Marion is one of my um one of my oldest like political uh organizing friends. Um I became a political person because of Marion and uh like doing organizing. Uh and she always has uh she has a tendency to get on a topic and then like learn a lot about it. And Marion learned some stuff around DUIs.
SPEAKER_05Have you been thinking about DUIs for a long time?
SPEAKER_00No, actually. Um, I would say our friend Cliapy, who's lived everywhere, I think when she was living in uh Houston, she mentioned in passing how DUIs are just everywhere there. And I thought it was just, I don't know, hilarious in a way. Just the way she talks about it is funny. She'll say that all of her co-workers bike to work and like carpool to work, but like none of them can drive. So like the one person without a DUI is like the driver and um trying to borrow her like roommate's car, but not being able to figure out how the breathalyzer works because they too have a DUI. And just like her making it sound like everywhere outside of like New York and California, like the Midwest, I guess, DUIs are like this gorge where uh so many people are affected. She said that if she if you take the bus in in Houston, people will just assume she has a DUI when really she just didn't have a car. People would like go to her and be like, Oh, when did you get your your your DUI? I have one too. And she would be like, I don't have a DUI.
SPEAKER_03I just like riding the bus. Yeah, no one just likes riding the bus in Houston, apparently. They just have a DUI.
SPEAKER_05The assumption that's so crazy. The assumption if you're on public transit, they're like, that person drinks too much.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I mean there is like a certain vehicle. Um some of my family lives in Germany, and there are these uh if you see someone on a certain kind of like scooter, that's because they they can't drive anymore. They got their license taken away, so they have to take one of these little mopeds. It's like you have a DUI. Oh, interesting. Um so that happens. And I also know there's other places in the US where if you'll see people in like golf carts, because golf carts go kind of fast, y'all, but they're not uh under the purview of like a licensed vehicle. So there's certain tells, I guess, in different cities. Scooters, golf carts, ride in the bus, you got a DUI. Anything that's not you have a car, it's like people assume the reason you don't have a car is like you got a DUI. And if it's not a DUI, you're a broke bitch. There's like not a world it feels like outside of New York where when you don't have a car, it's for like, I don't need one.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah. Marion, after this friend in Houston um was telling you this about how everyone they know has a DUI. Everyone they know can't drive because they have a DUI. She can't start the car because she doesn't know how to use the breathalyzer. Like, did this uh like what like what did this do to your thinking?
SPEAKER_00I I tend to fall more in line with Cheryl in terms of being anti-car. Well, I'm okay, so like I I'm full of contradic contradictions with like everyone. I loved I'm a passenger princess. I love to be in a car. I love calling a car at the end of a long night. Um, but and I hate the subway. I think the subway is gross, but like on principle, like I'm very pro-public transit. I think that it's a shame. What used to happen what happened to the trolley uh system in this country. There used to be, you know, the trolley was like, I think the fifth m most common way to get to get to get around. And there used to be trolleys here in New York too that we don't know about or like talk about. So I do think that the fact that so many alternatives to the car have been like abolished is a big shame. But um, so yeah, so when I found out about this DUI thing, it led me down this road of trying to figure out uh our areas with a lot of DUIs, also areas that don't have public transit. Or like what's the the connection there? Because my my first thought was okay, yeah, DUIs being like this huge issue through throughout the country, but not like here where I live in New York. It must be because yeah, like we live in a car-dependent hellscape. You absolutely need a car everywhere. And my thought is that, like, yeah, if we're gonna do something about DUIs, breaking car dependency is going to be it. And for the most part, what I looked up did like confirm that that like car hell is why we have DUIs.
SPEAKER_05Sorry, sorry, I just need to address I just need to address the the really loud siren.
SPEAKER_02They're coming for us.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, road dogs is bummed from a highway.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, go on, Marion.
SPEAKER_00But at the same time, um, yeah, yeah, I wasn't able to find much definitive proof that there's a connection between public transit and not having a lot of DUIs, like California, for example, where I'm from, I was surprised to learn that California is one of the top five states with the lowest number of DUIs, which doesn't make any sense because I have a I have a theory.
SPEAKER_03It's because of the concept of California sober. You know what I mean? California sober. A lot of people don't smoke uh don't drink alcohol. When you're California sober, you smoke weed, but you don't drink alcohol. It's popular enough that they they have a little term for it, so I just assume those freaks over there don't like wine. The state of weed smokers. Yeah, it's just a lot of weed smoking. Maybe.
SPEAKER_05That's interesting. That that that's probably real.
SPEAKER_03Just like the level of like engagement with um alcohol. Considering like you have these two big cities also in California, Los Angeles, um, and San Francisco. That really, I think probably they have the most people. They like so both of those cities probably have this like culture, like of um you get a lot of wellness influencers, a lot of people who probably don't drink a lot of alcohol. Um, a lot of weird tech bros who are also not drinking alcohol because they're I don't know, what are they drinking? They're drinking like those fucking heels. Yeah, weird vegan like protein shapes, soylents. Yeah, that's the shit they're on. They're they're like at their parties, like taking shots of soylent, like fucking freaks.
SPEAKER_00I yeah, so I tried to look up why, and I don't know, my research what what was hard to do, but like for the most part, I wasn't able to find out an answer. So I can only guess the same as as you, Cheryl, as to why California, despite being probably the most car centric state in the country. Well, I don't know if that's fact, but like definitely up there, it's gotta be. Um, still doesn't have uh the same DUI issue as like other states. And one thing I read was that enforcement is so good. Someone argued that like cops like immediately catch people. But I'm you know a prison abolitionist. I don't think that that's true. Like, I don't think that cops are preventing DUIs at a rate, and also I don't think it's true that um that enforcement really works with something like DUIs or like um enforcement working as a deterrent, because like I don't know, when you're drunk, I don't think you're making the same calculus you are when you're sober. But then there's the argument that like okay, you were planning to go to a bar, you have your car, you're already making the calculus there that you're planning to go home and drive drunk. But so I don't know, I can only guess as to why California doesn't have the same rate. The the one explanation I read, I don't think is it. I don't think it's because um policing is so um effective or something.
SPEAKER_03So yeah. You know deterrence, I don't know if there's a deterrence because something that you've mentioned is like the structural issues. Right, exactly. You know, like you're gonna go out because you're a human. Um and most cities are not gonna facilitate going out and like not driving drunk. Um maybe like we had an era, and I'd be interested to see if the the rates of DUIs were lower at the time in which Uber was just getting started and the Uber drive that like were so cheap. You know, like at this moment though, like there was a time in which I this is a long time ago, y'all. Um, and I went back home to Atlanta and Uber had just started. And Atlanta is such a car hell city. And also everywhere you want to fucking go out feels like it's far away from each other. Like, oh, we're going from this spot and now we're going to someone else's house, like is and the house is like on the fucking outside the perimeter. Great. Now you have to drive like 30 minutes to get there. I'm not taking a fucking 30-minute Uber. Not in 2025, but in like 2015, that Uber was like $10. You know, so I would do that. In 2025, we're driving drunk across Atlanta. We're on we're drunk. We're drunk on the freeways. We're going around that fucking perimeter drunk. Because the Uber is now $70. Like, no fucking thank you.
SPEAKER_05I mean, but this is also you're like, this is you're also talking about a place where Uber exists or where Uber can come quickly. Like I went to high school in Wyoming, in Rock Springs, Wyoming. You were there. Drunk, baby. You were driving drunk. Like, I mean, the the joke is the joke among me and all my friends was that everyone's like, not only do I drive drunk, but like I'm like I drive better when I'm drone's everyone says I drive better when I'm drunk. You're like, should you be driving? Like, should I be driving this one on the in my top four? Like that was everyone had the same joke. I did too. I was like, should I be driving? Watch this.
SPEAKER_03I'm a Formula One freezer.
SPEAKER_05Literally. And when we lived in a in a you know, a small town, which, you know, it wasn't rural, but it was small and the roads were big, and um there was no other way to get anywhere. Like you had to take a car and everyone drove drunk. Yeah. Everyone drove drunk. If someone was very drunk, no, no, we were responsible. They shouldn't drive. But if someone like was a little drunk, they drove.
SPEAKER_03A little drunk. Yeah, we're like a little drunk is fine.
SPEAKER_05Like like the bar, like the line at which sort of people would be like, maybe they shouldn't drive was quite high.
SPEAKER_03Right, right. I yes, that's true. I've only driven drunk one time, y'all. One time. Uh, because I went to college in New York. That is the real factor here is that I went to college here in New York, so I did not have to like have the time when I was young. All of my like young and like worst partying times, y'all. The worst thing they happened for me is that um some couple took me to Jersey with them after I was at a club, and that was horrible because uh because I was taken away from the place where I could easily just drunkenly get on the train. I'd be drunk as fuck, you know, like on the train, like 3 a.m. coming from Harlem back to Brooklyn. You know, but I never had that experience uh as a young person, somewhere where you had to like drive drunk, except when I went to go visit my friend uh in at UGA University of Georgia. Um sat in the fucking boonies, UGA, which is like it's a college town. Uh so the fucking Uber stuff wasn't working also at this time. This was before I think Uber, even y'all. Like, I'm old as fuck. So we had to drive from someone's house party back to his dorm, and he was so fucked up. It was one of those situations, yeah, he shouldn't drive drunk. And I was like, I'm drunk. It was so stressful. It was so stressful to me because I wasn't used to doing this, and I can't believe that there are people for whom this behavior doesn't feel immediately stressful to me. Because you know that but you do you you have that feeling? You're like, this I feel good when I'm driving. I was terrified the entire time. I was so afraid. I was like, my reflexes are half a second, like like sh like But you were also coming from New Jersey back to New York City? No, no, this is when I was visiting my friend at the University of Georgia and I like drove us across the college town. Yeah. Um, and he was like, It's fucking fine. Like, it's mom.
SPEAKER_05I mean, I guess part of maybe what made it feel okay in Wyoming was that it was like a small town where everyone knew everyone and also where we all knew the road so well. Like there was a sense of like you're just like walk it felt like you're in your village and you're walking back home at the end of the night. Right. Like it was uh add acquaintance to it.
SPEAKER_03Who can you fucking hit in Wyoming? A cow? Go ahead, make your little jokes. Go ahead, make a little joke. They got buffalo, it's not even a fucking cow, y'all. They're just fucking one of the bison who escaped from Yellowstone. Um, Marion, did you ever drive drunk? No, you can't drive, right?
SPEAKER_00Well, I I mean I have a license. I am like the one person from California who doesn't drive, but I do have a license. And Michael, my my boyfriend was actually encouraging me to take like a driving class. Because I because Michael has a car, and every time we we do drive. Michael, that's a car?
SPEAKER_03I'm learning so many things here.
SPEAKER_05You've been real quiet about Michael's car. People have been wondering about that, Mary. Why are you so quiet with this car? Interesting.
SPEAKER_00Interesting. I mean it I bring it up when it you know it comes up, but uh but I I like the way you guys are talking about DUIs and just like being really open about the fact that you've both done it. Because I think that there is this huge like shame and like it's viewed as like a criminal thing and like personally irresponsible. But like, yeah, I think if there's anything folks can take away is that it is like a structural issue, and I think treating it like a criminal issue is part of why our society has been bad at like eliminating it or addressing it. Like, I think treating anything as a criminal issue is right, we're prison abolitionists, it's doesn't get to the root of the problem, it becomes obsession. There's obsession with like punishment. And I think that the policy around drunk drunk driving for a long time has been like drink less. And we live in a society I I love to drink. Cheryl knows this. Our friend Calliope actually once told me I drink more than anyone she knows. Which I think that's not true. I yeah, I like to, but so I'm not gonna tell anyone to not drink, but I'm what was what was my my point? Yeah, so treating it like a criminal issue is wrong, and it's trapped us in like a framework to where we're not able to really do anything about DUIs. And I think it goes to the abolitionist imagination, right? It's hard for people to imagine any any other way to stop DUIs besides harsher penalties and like more cops and really inner car dependency that is like driving this thing. It's not that people are making bad bad are making bad choices, but they don't have a choice, really, I feel like so.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, but I will say though, like remember, like there are real people suffering. The numbers like some numbers that you you sent me, um which is that every year apparently between 1.3 and 1.5 million people are arrested for DUIs. Um so that's a lot of people. And it's like the last year for this data, I don't know, but um 2015, over 10,000 people died of alcohol impaired related crashes, which was like one third of the total traffic deaths. So like one third of deaths that are related to drinking and driving is a lot of deaths. Now, this is 2015. I think we need to find some updated data because I'm interested to know if that's changed. I bet one third of deaths are now from like fucking phones for sure. Scrolling TikTok for while you know, but it's still a lot of deaths, I'm sure, that are from alcohol. Um so if there are like awful things to do while driving a car, one is like, yeah, looking at your fucking phone. Um drinking. Probably what what are other calls? Like being sleepy, but like the thing about like drinking and looking at your phone, I think they both inspire like such disgust. Like, do you guys inspire such disgust in people because you're like you were having fun. The presence of the alcohol meant you were having fun. You know, like did you need to do that? Yes, it's structural.
SPEAKER_05But like the suggestion is that you were being selfish. You were being selfish, but you weren't thinking about how you might hurt someone else.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Like from that like perspective, of course, I'm like, do you guys are are wrong? This is why I was so stressed when I was like driving drunk, because it is a selfish like action. Yeah. And like it's selfish in the face of like a system that you don't really have a lot of like control over that really, of course, yeah structures our choices.
SPEAKER_00Sorry, let me cut you on the show. I I say that for for sure, but like I think that there's this like myth that like the the drunk driver goes out and kills like a child, he kills like an old person or like a cyclist. But from what I read, that the people most likely to be killed by a drunk driver is the driver themselves and people in the car. So like these deaths from drunk driving do tend to be, I don't know, people who aren't walking away from it often.
SPEAKER_05So I do feel like that that doesn't change the way that I think about those deaths, though. I don't know.
SPEAKER_00Like, like just like they're still like innocent people.
SPEAKER_02But you're like, actually, it was the driver who was drunk, you know what? He got what he deserved.
SPEAKER_00You rolled the dice, baby. That makes it like I just think that there's this pop a popular belief about who the victims are that isn't entirely true, is what I'm saying. I'm not saying it makes it like less sad or like okay that it's the drunk driver that's dying in these things, but I don't know. That should also inform the way we kind of like view it, I feel like. I don't know.
SPEAKER_05Right, because the way that people who drive drunk are often talked about are is that they're menaces to society, that they pose great danger to others, and you're saying they're menaces to themselves. They're menaces to themselves, mostly.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and we've really enabled this sort of like sort of suicidal way of having fun, essentially, because you won't build a fucking light rail in your town. So instead people are going out and drinking uh and driving because there just isn't any other option. My my younger brother uh had a girlfriend uh a couple years ago who uh got a DUI. Um and it wasn't her first time like crashing the car but not getting caught, you know, so that just really told you a lot. Um when she got this DUI, uh my brother had to, and they were living in Alabama. Um my brother had to pay thousands of dollars uh for this like course she had to be in. Like you have to pay for those things, like they're not free. Um so there's a lot of money involved in like meeting the conditions of this DUI. If you don't meet them, then you go to prison, jail, you know, you gotta spend time in jail if you don't do certain programs. Um she also had obviously like a check-in with her parole officer, and she had to do this check-in every two weeks, and they would do the testing to make sure she's not drinking. Um, so it wasn't just like I can't drink and drive, it's like I can't drink, you know. Now you're under this, like it was like over a year that she was monitored in her like drinking. And she had to go in for this testing. If she didn't do it, one time we went on vacation, she came with us, and like it was a big deal, and they kind of like left it to like whether or not they would let her go on this vacation. It was like all at the mercy of her parole officer. Because they're like, if you don't show up here every two weeks and get tested, like you're going to jail. Um, and she couldn't drive, of course, uh for a while. Her license was suspended for a while. Uh, which really affected what kind of job she could get, because they're living in Alabama. There is no there's not even fucking sidewalks in my mom's neighborhood where they were living. Like, there's not even sidewalks.
SPEAKER_05Like Yeah, the car is the only way.
SPEAKER_03You can't get anywhere. Um, yeah, you better take a fucking car.
SPEAKER_05It's that thing we were talking about. If you like don't have a car in most places or don't have access to it, you're out.
SPEAKER_03Right. They're like, where could you work? Because this is not like New York City where there's like the urban um our homes and businesses are together. Like the only business in walking distance in my mother's like house was like the gas station.
SPEAKER_05It it's honestly like like it's a type of criminalization that maybe could be compared to like a house arrest. Because it's um like the pun like in effect when you can't drive in a place where you have to have a drive to get around, the effect, the outcome is a kind of stay in the house. You're stayed in the house all the time. That's right. You're kind of like you you can't go anywhere. That's your and which is like how like say you do have a drinking problem and are a menace to at least at minimum yourself. Like you're not gonna it's hard to get better if you're bound to your home. Like if if like the types of social relations or or life experiences that you could have via car are not available to you.
SPEAKER_03She did get worse, yes, because she was in this house all the time. Also, she's living in they were living with my mom. Imagine you get a DUI and you don't have a car anymore, you can't go anywhere, you're sitting in there with like your mother in law. And this like that's not a place to get better where you cannot walk around nowhere but the gas station. It is not the place to be like, I have a drinking problem. Should I work on that? It wasn't shit else to do. But watch TV and get a beer from the gas station. Baby couldn't go nowhere.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I don't know that. Yeah. The whole DUI thing just was a lot of money. It was really like um like disruptive to her getting a job and getting her life back in order in any way. And really punitive. Like it seemed like they enjoyed like holding it over her head whether or not she could go on this vacation or not, like to the last minute, like you trying to figure that out. Like um the parole officer.
SPEAKER_05The parole officers were holding it over her head. Yes. She had to prove to them.
SPEAKER_03Yes, you have a lot of like discretion, this parole officer. Like when you have to come in for this testing, like they kind of own your life.
SPEAKER_05And all of this after one DUI?
SPEAKER_03Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_05Marion, like could you talk about that? Like what someone gets a DUI, I don't know, somewhere. Uh is it is this federal law? Is this state by state the way DUIs are handled? And and then and then what happens?
SPEAKER_00It is state by state. Um like different states have different terms. For for example, like some certain states call it a DUI. Some states call it driving wall and fair.
SPEAKER_05But um DUI driving under the influence.
SPEAKER_00Right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. But I think that um what Cheryl's pointing out is really interesting, that there are definitely different legal and economic reper repercussions that super depend on your race and class and your background. But um, from what I was able to read about DEYs, the effects is um, you know, it appears on a background check. When you try to get a job, it can stop you from doing that. Um, you have to register with your insurance, so your insurance will go up. Um mandatory programs, like Cheryl talked about, they're very expensive and time consuming. For someone who works two jobs or cares for a child, attending those classes isn't always possible. So I just think of what DUIs must do to someone already living on the edge. Yeah. Um, and not to mention, I think of losing a car from a DUI too, like you guys are talking about. One stat I read that I thought was interesting was that um the black and white employment gap would be according to the the the Brookings Institute, the black and white employment gap would be cut in half if black people own cars at the same rate as white people. So like car ownership is like that. Wait, could you say that again?
SPEAKER_05What I want to hear that slow.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so according to the Brookings Institute, you're looking at fill it out. One study determined that if blacks own cars of the same race as whites, it would eliminate nearly half the difference in black and white joblessness rates.
SPEAKER_03So basically, black people cannot get good jobs or get jobs at all because they don't have transportation.
SPEAKER_05It's like the chicken and egg car job thing. Yeah. They don't have jobs they can't get car, they don't have cars so they can't get jobs, so they're unemployed.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, exactly. Oh.
SPEAKER_05That's that's even though that like makes obvious sense, it's like shocking to hear. It is crazy to hear how simple disenfranchisement works. Do you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I mean I guess that is like I think about my mom's neighborhood, which is a low-income neighborhood. Um my mother was without a car for a while. And it was really like an issue. Like, and when she had a car, she often was driving other people in the neighborhood. It's a black neighborhood um in Birmingham. And she was always being asked for a ride. She always was driving someone somewhere. Because people don't have cars like that um in low-income black communities. Whoa. And some of them might have not have cars because of DUIs. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. It's really a system that punishes the poor, um, endangers the most vulnerable in our society.
SPEAKER_03So Yeah, I mean this would be fixed not with letting everyone like just drink, but with like um my favorite thing, um, buses. You could just make get some buses, y'all. Public transit. It was like what we spend for every like eight dollars we spend on like cars, um, the car industry, we spend one dollar in public transit, right? Which is like insane considering the benefits. Um, and just I think the way bad driving, including drunk driving, sends me into a rage. And I feel like it sends so many people into a rage. And this problem is like could be solved. We could be solving it in some part, you know, through some transit options. Um and instead, like, the longer we don't solve it, the more it's making me become a bad person. My soul is not good because I'll see someone driving bad and I'll be like, I hope you die. But like, they do sometimes, so you know, it's not a good thing to think, but like I'd be like, Good, you know, like you deserved it.
SPEAKER_04Wait, what I saw I was on the road the other day and someone was driving fucking crazy, and I was like, that is so dangerous. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Like that is like they are they are like that, it's they are driving around in a big SUV. That is a 6,000-pound weapon, and they are driving 35 above the speed limit on this tiny ass road. That's crazy.
SPEAKER_03I'm always like, I hope they crash and die, but that's not good to think. And you see, cars are making me a bad person because like when I'm seeing people drive recklessly, drive drunk and stuff. I am the cartual part of me rises up.
SPEAKER_05Nothing makes you want someone to be punished like being on the road all day.
SPEAKER_03Yes, car stuff makes you want people to be punished. Maybe that's why we don't solve this DUI like public transit problem. We're like it's really getting our like um our feelings for the need to like uh punish. And it is kind of like a system where it's like if you're clever, you can get away with it, and if you're not clever, well it's interesting too.
SPEAKER_05It's interesting too because I think it it like criminalizing DUIs in this way, criminalizing drunk driving in this way, actually serves to differentiate between good drivers and bad drivers. Yeah. Which I think like instead of the conversation being like driving inherently is an unsafe thing that we should be moving away from, we're saying some people are safe and some people are bad. And if we can punish the bad people effectively and if we could corral them and keep them home, then cars remain safe.
SPEAKER_03Cars remain failing, even though they're still inherently kind of like dangerous and shitty for us in a lot of ways, you know. Like they're kind of like cars just are, as you said, a huge dangerous object.
SPEAKER_05Um I'm scared to cross the street I live in.
SPEAKER_03Right. I'm sure to cross my street. Right, absolutely. Um I mean, I feel like there's less DUIs in New York, but people are always running people over. Like people are always getting run over in New York, like crossing the street. Like being a drunk pedestrian in New York is actually dangerous because of cars. Like you're making being drunk dangerous for me. I'm not even fucking driving.
SPEAKER_05But I th the the drunk driving thing, I'd be interested what you think about this, Marion. I think is like politically interesting because I feel like in general, most people agree. Like everyone thinks it's bad and everyone thinks it should be punished. Like I think about like, you know, there's cases all over, but I think about when someone in Brooklyn dies because they're hit by a drunk driver. I know you're saying that most people who are drunk and driving hurt themselves, kill themselves, but um but like in instances where someone gets hit by a car, like sort of the community response to it is like rabid, intense. Like like th there's sort of like gulag for this person, a gulag for this drunk driver. And it seems um acros uh my sense is that it's like across race, is that it's across socioeconomic status. People like i i i i it seems maybe what's so interesting about like what you're saying is that it's on the surface it seems like such a simple bad thing. Like like the way that it's bad feels like like a like simple to understand. You drove drunk, you that made you um kill someone else. You should be punished gravely.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Well, but there's all these structural things.
SPEAKER_05Essentially it's it's almost like it's like crime without like sort of like the ethical questions of it seem on the surface simpler. Do you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00It's not like that's complicated, yeah. I think it's complicated too because like um when drunk driving star I mean not when it started, but when campaigns against it started, like recognizing it as like a social ill, a lot of people fought against that, like fought for their right to drunk drive. And like anything involving the car, like any improved safety standard is always fought tooth and nail. I read um an op-ed from 1984, and in it, this college professor says that he's been driving drunk for the past 25 years, and nothing has ever happened to him, and all his friends drive drunk, and therefore this hysteria on driving drunk is like overblown and it's a waste of time. And then I think by today's standards, that's like an insane thing, but even to get people to view drunk driving as bad has been like a political campaign. Like everything good we have, we have from has come from political organizing. But um, Omar, your other point about how when someone is killed in New York by like a drunk driver. I used to work in um safe streets. He used to work for a nonprofit called Transportation Alternatives. And one time there was like this blonde white woman who was a cyclist. She wasn't hit by a drunk driver, but she was hit by like a trash car, like um, like a trash truck, garbage truck and killed. And you would think that the reaction would be we need better safety standards around trash, uh uh around garbage cars, or we need protected bike lanes or better infrastructure or something. But a lot of people jumped to blame her, and it became like this thing of like, why wasn't she wearing a helmet? Why didn't she dismount when she got to the intersection? So I do feel like even I mean, I can't imagine a case of where someone was killed by a drunk driver and then they'd blame Yes, because you can't imagine when it's a drunk driver, they always blame the driver.
SPEAKER_03It becomes clear. But if it's not a drunk driver, then it's always on the pedestrian or something. They're like, why would they do it? What was it was the cyclist doing?
SPEAKER_05So so drinking and driving is the only way to drive badly or wrong.
SPEAKER_03Yes, it's kind of like the it is the sin eater. I feel like there's a lot of do you know this concept like there's this like um you need um some category of person, uh sinners like one person, but let's say the drunk drivers are like this category of person that takes on all of the the bad, the bad driver thing. You know, they eat all the sin of driving. They're the ones we can hate, they're the ones who they should die for their crimes, you know, like good when they die in the crash, you know, like they did all the bad stuff, they kind of take on all of the negativity of driving, the things that are are bad about driving, that these cars are weapons, that you can be irresponsible with them, that you know, uh that they make life like worse, and people are like, in this this particular type of driver, we hate them, and we all hate them. But I think you're right, Mary. And then there's like other sorts of things that happen, like vehicles murder people for all sorts of non-alcohol related reasons reasons, and those have to be rationalized because overall cars are good, you know. The the auto is good to keep our cars.
SPEAKER_05Right. So they so those so the drunk the drunk drivers we punish them and they they're a vessel, they absorb all of our sins. Yeah, and so that the rest of us can drive and be conscious clear.
SPEAKER_03Be good, yeah, we're good. And any bad things that happen when we're not drunk, it's like, well, there must be some other factors up here, you know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so interesting, yeah. Yeah. Sorry, and to Cheryl, on your point about it being like a sin eater type thing, the uh the alcohol companies too are able to get away with selling a product that causes, you know, these crashes and these accidents. Uh one thing that they did, I believe, starting in the what did my notes say? I don't know if it was the 80s or the the 90s. Oh well, I guess at some point they're like drink responsibly century. Yeah, yeah. The drink responsibly thing. Which is which is hilarious. It's like the um r recycling of the alcohol industry. You know how um the plastic industry invented recycling so that way they could pass the buck on to us. Like it's up to us to save the planet, not up to them to like stop making this product that's terrible for the environment. Like, it's up to us to quote unquote drink responsibly.
SPEAKER_03They said we will still be making all of the Mike's hard lemonades. We're gonna make more of those, more flavors, and drink as many as you want. Drink so many because you can't even taste the alcohol in these things.
SPEAKER_05But drink responsibly so funny is big is big it's like it's like a lee it's like a legal statement. It's almost like it's on you. Like it's uh like they're cleansing their hands of any responsibility. They're passing on the responsibility.
SPEAKER_03It's to you. Absolutely. It's to you. Uh Omar and I are drinking right now. Uh drinking and driving. We're literally drinking and podcasting. That's legal, but um yeah, I don't know. Like I I'm reflexively I'm I'm against drunk driving. Don't don't drive drunk, yell. Don't do it. But it is like interesting how it's really the only time people are mad at drivers for real. Uh it's in and I'm mad at drivers all the all the time. I'll be seeing people drive, and I'm like, surely there's something happening. No. They're like a normal person. That's just how they drive. They're not drunk. I have a friend. I hope she's not listening to this, but she's a person for whom you could think there might be a DUI situation happening, but there isn't. And in those cases, no one will take her license away. Do you know what I mean? They pull her over and she passes the test, she walks a line, they're gonna let her go back onto the street. But she's just as dangerous as any drunk driver, you know, like but we're not really concerned about driving well that much. It's like it's gotta be like egregiously bad driving before you're taken off the road.
SPEAKER_00That's true. I guess the other piece I want to talk about was just the race element of it. Um, a lot of this won't be shocking to you guys or people who listen to the pod, but um per people of color are way more likely to be pulled over than white people, even though white people drink and drive at the same rate as um African Americans and Latinos.
SPEAKER_03But um and I think I feel like it has to be higher rates, just from my personal observation of white people. I don't know.
SPEAKER_00I think it's like self-in-first, reported data. So it's like white people confessing to the times that they that they've done it, but it could be bigger than that, right? But um, but I think that there's something there too with the fact that um like people of color, the one of the biggest ways people of color come in contact with police, period, is through the car. So they're getting pulled over more often. Um, drunk driving becomes another kind of excuse for police to interact with these populations that are already over policed. Um, stops for drinking and driving are more likely to be in in communities of color, that is, cops pulled over on the side of the road looking to see who's driving in correctly, quote unquote, um more likely to be in black and brown communities than white communities. And then when you think about the impacts of getting a BUI, again, it's black and brown people for the most part, and that leads to them being more likely to be on the sidewalk in these areas. Like Cheryl mentioned, like her mom living in an area doesn't have sidewalks where I grew up in Rancho Cucamonga is the same thing. Like we don't have sidewalks everywhere, and so just like being on the street itself without a car becomes more of a dangerous thing, you're more likely to be hit. Um, in addition to that, just like junk driving accidents themselves. If you're poor, you're more likely to be in a car that doesn't provide the same level of per protection as a rich white person. Like Omar, you mentioned the SUV. Like the SUVs are basically a tank. If you get into an accident with an SUV, your car will be totaled, and people with the SUV won't walk will walk away without a scratch.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00So I don't know, these things compound this car dependency, wise, how unsafe our infrastructure is, it all is like related.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I'm over here googling mothers against drunk driving to see if they are still active. Because they were a big part of this, like they had some real political power.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, they were like so much moral they had so much moral momentum.
SPEAKER_00Right, yeah. One thing I think I think was interesting about them is that they really stressed people should drink less, also, which I feel like is not like I don't know. I mean, I wanna say it's not like a reasonable ask, but like maybe it is. Maybe we do drink too much as a culture. Um, I feel like people in America, there's a stereotype that people in America do drink more than people in Europe do. But I feel like any calls to like curb drunk driving that appeal to like changing our like culture around drinking too are just a little bit like suspect to me or something.
SPEAKER_03I don't know, so I don't love that about Matt, that they're very much like they were though, like really into seatbelt laws though. You know, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was also a thing they did. Like they're like, you gotta wear your seat belts. That that's good. I mean, you know, but they did a lot of they are very like a carceral sort of like oriented organization. Like everything is about like, yeah, how do we make sentencing stronger and like court monitoring like yeah, they do some of that, but um I I uh I have a question about um uh about deterrence.
SPEAKER_05And you know, this is like this is the this is the abolitionist question or the question abolitionist abolitionists gets at get asked about everything. Someone does a bad thing, what do we do about it? Um so I'm wondering about like what types of deterrence might be not punitive, not carceral, and might reduce drunk driving here. Like like what were like like I'm thinking about the breathalyzer when you get into your car. Um on the surface of I don't that seems not bad. Um if if we all had to blow blow a little before we got into our car, I don't know.
SPEAKER_03Like Bitch, do you know how mad I'd be if it broke that night and I need to get home somewhere? Like, oh my god, I'd I'd just fucking lose it. Like, but okay, maybe.
SPEAKER_05Like what okay, so like what um what to do?
SPEAKER_03I mean, okay, breathalyzer, not that bad. I can I can I hate cars anyway. You should have to fucking blow in it, you have to do a little puzzle, you have to like uh read a little excerpt. I don't know, all sorts of shit. Cool. That's fine. Also, you should start treating people like like the colleges treat their little kids, which is just actually m what am I saying? It's just public transit. You know when the college puts out the little bus that goes from like the downtown area back to the dorm so that like you can drink and then get on this bus without drunk driving. That's I was like, that's a special thing. That's just the bus. That's just the city bus. We need to be to make more city bus.
SPEAKER_05Okay, I uh of course, of course, probably. But I'm always like, okay, also we um we lost Marion.
SPEAKER_03Oh no. Marion said, I have to go do some drunk driving right now. I gotta get off and drink.
SPEAKER_05No, okay, of course, I of cour of course, of course, the answer is is public transit. Of course. But in the long meanwhile, between now and when most places have any type of public transit, what's the what is the answer?
SPEAKER_03Because I'm not saying build a subway line. A bus can how much can a bus cost? $60,000. I don't know how much a bus costs. We should look that up. But like a fucking bus rides on the same roads as a car. You can purchase a bus. You know, a city can purchase a few buses. You don't even need to make the whole transit line. Just make the downtown area sort of like make a loop or some shit, you know? Um that's one thing.
SPEAKER_04But I'm like, if you live in Nebraska.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_05In a small town.
SPEAKER_03Yes. Here's the thing I think we should do. What do we do there? Everyone get golf cards.
SPEAKER_00Sorry, my phone died also. But I was gonna say that, yeah, I mean, looking around, some things that have cur uh cured drunk driving on college campuses, they'll do like designated driver driving programs, they'll do like a tipsy taxi. Those things seem to to work. So I think maybe just like I mean, at the end of the day, anything that does stop people from getting behind the wheel when they're drunk is good. I just think like deterrence like knowing, oh, if I get behind this car, like I it could get stopped by a cop, it could ruin my life in XYZ ways. It usually doesn't work if you're drunk. So Yeah, exactly. So something that stops people from needing to be in that position in the the first place. And the biggest thing I think is better public transit.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, Omar was like, but what about the medium term? And here's what It sounds like we're saying sounds like it says you gotta get a lame friend or like a friend who has gone sober for non-lame reasons. Sorry to all my sober friends out there. Um, you gotta get one of those. So you need to go start to get to know an alcoholic because they will be there for you when you want to be an alcoholic.
SPEAKER_05They don't want to be there for you.
SPEAKER_03I know.
SPEAKER_05All the alcoholics listening are probably just like leave us alone.
SPEAKER_03Okay, so we get the people in the AA program and we offer them like um the government subsidizes a little like job program. Oh and you become a a driver. So, you know, for people. You see, so we're we're both like giving people like some job opportunities who are wrong, I guess. Remember, they don't have sponsored by sponsored by Uber. Sponsored by Uber.
SPEAKER_05You become become a sober gig worker.
SPEAKER_03Right. Become an Uber driver just on the weekend so that people can go out and drink. Um, you can't get a job because remember you have a DUI, so actually you don't have a car anymore. So we're just gonna pay you to drive around the people who don't have DUIs, so they don't get one like you. You'll be like the scared straight program.
SPEAKER_00I think the issue is that drunk driving is just so built into our built environment. That just like breaking car dependency. Like, I think the solution to everything is communism ultimately. Like, we need to get rid of the car. And getting rid of the car isn't gonna be so easy as a matter of like individuals deciding I'm going to ride the bus more, but it's like breaking the power of big oil, breaking the power of the auto industry that has bought our government. Um, Elon Musk owns a car company, and he's I guess him and the president had a falling out, but he was like the second most powerful person in the country for a period. So so I think that that yeah, it's gonna take a big change to really stop DUIs. I think that it's gonna be about breaking that power that these things have. And that that they actively use to to try to um you know squash any competition. Now I think it's really interesting. I don't know if you guys have done it yet, but I know you plan to do an episode on electric vehicles. I think it's really interesting the way that these car companies are now becoming the EV. The EV companies after years and decades of trying to to squash EVs um are now then becoming those same companies themselves. But um but but yeah, th those are my my thoughts that um we need alternatives to the car.
SPEAKER_05Well the DUI problem seems I think particularly difficult because there's so many big industries that are invested in us not like uh seeing the larger issue of cars and infrastructure and oil and gas. Because like sort of like and like the alcohol industry wants us to think of the alcohol as just our responsibility. Sort of there's uh oil and gas that wants us to keep driving, driving, driving. There are they the the automakers want us to keep buying these cars and using them all the time and building these relationships with them. Like the the the imperative for all of these m gigantic energy uh industries is for us to keep moving a lot, buy their vehicles on these roads, and to drink a lot and have fun. Like like that's what that that's what the money's trying to get us to do.
SPEAKER_03My god, you know what? The real heroes here are really back to the California sober people. The legalization of weed, people drink less now. Apparently, Gen Z does. Like, this is well, you you can really be fucked up in a car when you're on weed, but um I would say people don't like to drive as much, I think, when they're high.
SPEAKER_05They don't like to go anywhere.
SPEAKER_03You don't like to go nowhere. Yeah, exactly. You need to be. Exactly. You were You just chill. When you're smoking, it's more like, do we really have to go? It's okay, maybe to Waffle House, but not like we go in everywhere. Um maybe that's the answer. We need to change God because capitalism, we really just have like individual like sort of choices. Like if we're not willing to work on the bus stuff, um capitalism constrains you in such such a way that it just leaves you with individual choices, like becoming California sober or like uh moving to New York City so you never have to fucking drive a car like I did. Um that was a big motivation for staying here, not driving a car. I love to be dri- I've thrown up in every subway station on the way from you know Upper Manhattan, Harlem back to Brooklyn. Like it took me hours to get home because I would get off and then throw up. And then I stopped trying to throw up off the train. I just try to throw up in the between the train cars. Um, that is an experience that everyone should have instead of drunk driving, which is terrifying. You might see a deer. So things might happen when you're drunk on the street. Nothing is gonna happen when I'm drunk in the city. I mean, lots of things could happen, but honestly, all of them are like much more interesting and fun than what drunk driving brings into my life. What am I gonna see on the way when I'm drunk driving in the fucking woods or the off-the-perimeter highway of Atlanta? Nothing. A bunch of other stupid drunk drivers. When you're drunk and getting on the bus, y'all, or getting on the train, or wandering around the cities of like the city streets, like you can see so many interesting things. They're interesting because you're drunk, but you're moving at a different pace.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Definitely. I wonder how many people stay in New York because you don't have to have a car here. I remember talking to someone who lived in DC for the the same reason. Like she was like, I can never live outside of DC exactly. DC drive. I think of DC as a place where you need a car, but she's not.
SPEAKER_05No, no, no, you can no, you can really do it without one.
SPEAKER_03Okay, if you stay in that little s area, right?
SPEAKER_05You have to just stay in the zone.
SPEAKER_03You said stay near where the Secret Service can actually easily snipe you. Like that zone is real good.
SPEAKER_05No, no, no, wait, wait, wait, wait. DC has a beautiful metro. I mean, I it's the slow and the service is bad, it doesn't reach a lot of places, but like in terms of station for station beauty, oof, oof, oof, those stations are gorgeous.
SPEAKER_03I love you're saying the same things that you could say about Atlanta. It's slow, it doesn't get you anywhere. But Atlanta has no beauty to its metro system. Nothing good. Nothing good, nothing good. But DC does have beautiful metros, that's true.
SPEAKER_05So it sounds like you know, to reduce drunk driving, we have to reduce car dependency.
SPEAKER_03The problem is the car, the car structure. The fact that we live also like also drunk driving across like a little college town, I think, the way that so many people are first introduced to it is like is so much less dangerous just because of the scale. You know what I mean? Like it's a like smaller space. And like car dependency in our whole society means that you get people like the Atlanta thing, you got people that are drunk driving for an hour across a fucking city. Like it's a long time, like just the spaces that we live in are so spread out already, the car dependency. So even like every car ride becomes more dangerous the more time you're in it over time, but certainly ones where you're drunk driving. And that's just related to the car dependency, like the sprawl of the city that requires you to take the car instead of like walking or doing something, you know, I don't know, riding your bike. Everyone start drunk bike riding. I drive drunk all the time. By which I mean is I take out a city bike and I drive my little city bike drunkenly across the city all the fucking time. So obviously, I'm talking all this shit about personal responsibility, but I will say, like, I don't have a car. I just be getting on an e-bike. The other day I ate a Popeyes biscuit from a 24-7 Popeyes. Like, I was in Bed Stuy and I rode this e-bike, drunk as fuck, with a biscuit in one hand, flying down the streets. Um, can I say that if I had to take a car, I was in a different situation. I wouldn't be eating a Popeyes like fucking like chicken leg out the window of like, you know, my Mustang. Um, I can't. But I do think it is incumbent on us to be like, think about being ethical actors. We we should think about it. And it's easier for me because like I'm just gonna die on my city bike. So I was acting ethically. When I drive my city bike drunk around, like that's ethical because a threat to yourself. I'm a threat to myself, baby. I'm suicidal anyway. Let's go. You know, like we'd be like, some some days it'd be like that, you know. Um everyone else who is in like a car situation. I'm sorry. Your options are move to fucking Brooklyn, or like be an ethical car fucking actor here.
SPEAKER_05If you're gonna do the car thing, be ethical.
SPEAKER_03Be a car ethical actor, meaning don't get in the car because I'm super drunk, or be a like alpha alcohol ethical actor, meaning I don't drink that much alcohol. I'm sorry you have to choose one of those things. Either you have to do less car or you have to do less alcohol. Whichever one you love more can maybe determine how you're gonna act in that situation.
SPEAKER_05Road dogs is hosted, edited, produced by Omar Etman and Cheryl Rivera. Special thank you to Marion Jones.