Posted by: syncro
Posted by: SixZeroSixOne
I know Syncro was being sarcastic but one of the downsides of not having a "neighborhood" pub is that some people in that neighborhood feel the need to drive to a different/distant neighborhood pub, rather than walk (too much effort) or take transit (below their social status or too inconvenient)
Which means more people DUI...
(I'm not defending the Bear, btw, as I think it's particular souless place. I much prefer the Queen's which also happens to be nearer to my home, though ironically, not as easy to reach on transit!)
That's a fair point, although I don't know how relevant the location of drinking establishments to one's home is in terms of DUI. It would be interesting to see if there's a study that compares the rate of DUI's with the number of local pubs to see if that bears (HA!) any truth. Although considering that the most drunk place on the planet (the UK) has about half the DUI's of Canada you might be on to something. I bet if you crossed drunkeness, footy hooliganism and bad teeth the UK would be world champs.
https://metro.co.uk/2019/05/15/uk-is-officially-the-most-drunk-nation-on-earth-9547816/
In all seriousness though I think one of the reasons DUI is so prevalent in Canada is because it's easy to get away with it, and if you do get caught the penalties tend to be low - even if you kill someone. A good example of that is Marco Muzzo; he killed three young children and their grandfather. He only served 4 years in prison and has been granted full parole after a little over 5 years. I think another reason is that socially, it still seems that the idea of having had a few before driving is not all that big a deal. Canada happens to have the worst rate of DUI amongst all developed countries, which is about double that of the UK.
It would be interesting to see where the DUIs are handed out. When I was growing up on the SSC drinking and driving was so common you could assume most cars on the road past midnight were under the influence. Combine that with a windy highway, no transit or cabs, kids that all thought they were Mario Andretti, decent money in logging and fishing for Mustangs and Trans-Ams, and little to no police presence meant that people died all the time. One of my good buddies in school died a couple years after graduation after leaving the pub, and I have a million stories of near misses. Hardly any DUIs though.
Canada, the US, and Australia are all high on the DUI list and they all have a lot of spread out rural communities so I bet that has a lot to do with it.