I disagree. Drinking alcohol in a vehicle increases the likelihood of exceeding the DUI limit. I’m not against drinking. Having a couple of drinks and then driving home is fine with me, as long as there is enough time to make sure the driver is not impaired before leaving. Without that extra drink in the car, the driver sobers up a bit on the way home. With it, they will likely get more impaired.
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My opinion, the “no drinking in public” laws in MS probably serve the same function as the “open container laws”. My point is, everyone knows you will get pulled over in MS driving with an open container of alcohol, regardless of what the laws on the books are. Obviously if you have an open container, the police will see you as a possible dui candidate and have probable cause to pull you over. The only difference if there’s not an open container law, possibly you won’t get a ticket for an open container. You may get written up for drinking in public, though. I still don’t see a correlation with traffic accidents. If the police here were to see you driving with an open container and ignore it (they won’t), then I could see the correlation and would agree.
It was interesting that the 2018 Mississippi house proposed a change for open bottle but it died in conference. Didn’t appear to have over-whelming support. I don’t know if it really makes any difference though except makes it easier for someone to be charged with something. But like I have said before, laws don’t necessarily determine behavior as much as culture and maturity. I guess that’s why we have courts and jails.
Laws are developed from a society’s culture, or morality, if you prefer. Some laws may no longer represent current culture, and if they cause too much trouble for today’s society, they are likely to be changed. Maybe the solution for MS is as @Scrapyard_John said, and the police pull anyone over swigging an open beer bottle. That’s easy to get around, though. Just have a mixed drink in an insulated cup. Who’s to know what’s in that mixer?
It would be easy to thwart suspicion with a styrofoam cup. But, then again, i suppose it would be just as easy to use a styrofoam cup to get around all the “open container” laws in other states.
Not a huge deal. I just want to be clear. If anyone’s planning to come down for a visit and drive by a highway patrol officer knocking back a cold one expecting them to look the other way because of a law that is or isn’t on the books… Let me know how that works out for ya 
Heh heh. I suppose I was 17, maybe 18 but I had my 59 VW anyway. My date and I came out of the drive in after the show and as usual I had a can of Coke that I happened to have a sip out of. The Sheriff’s deputy stopped me thinking I might have alcohol. He actually tasted my Coke to see if it was just Coke or not. No prob. No alcohol here. A little before that a bunch of us were having a bon fire in the woods near my prom date’s house and the police caught wind of it. Yeah the guy went around tasting the refreshments just to make sure no one had any alcohol. Again none of us did. Drinking age in Minnesota was 21 so everyone was a little shy of that. Even in South Dakota it was 19 so I was a sophomore before I could partake.
All of those do play a part, the challenge the profession has right now is trying to reconcile incongruencies in some of the tactics. For example, for 75+ years, we have built roads wide and straight, with large shoulders and clear zones. The problem is, we did this everywhere, even on residential streets signed for 25mph. We now have a sufficient depth of research data (i.e., deaths from crashes) to clearly show that these conditions actually encourage people to drive much faster than they otherwise would if there were narrow lanes, more visual obstructions, etc… And as we all know, speed kills.
Speed management and context sensitive design (i.e., prioritizing certain modes [often non-automotive] in certain areas) are now widely accepted as the path forward, the problem is now spending $$ to retrofit a nation of streets built on outdated practices.
Disagree @BikeGuy88. Speed, in itself doesn’t cause accidents. If it was, the carnage in Germany would be immense. It isn’t. It is LESS than in the US per mile driven, per vehicle and per capita.
While many speed restriction areas exist on the autobahn, there are still quite a lot of unrestricted sections. And cars are FAR faster than 25 years ago. The fastest I have ever driven, racetack, test track OR public roads was legally on the autobahn, in a diesel Audi wagon, at 162 mph.
Excessive speed for conditions is a cause. Inattention is a cause. Incompetence is a cause. DUI is a cause. Speed, by itself, not a cause.
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+1
And, I think we could add that excessive speed in a poorly-maintained vehicle, or with an overly-confident, inexperienced driver behind the wheel is a causative factor. When teenaged drivers operate their cars at excessive speeds, they seem to have a lot more accidents than older, more experienced drivers.
Rarely disagree with Mustangman, but I must here. It’s fairly obvious, if someone pulls out in front of you and you’re going 100 mph, you’re approaching them at 50 mph faster than if you were going 50 mph. The faster you go, the faster things happen and the less time you have to react. Half the time to react in this instance.
I do agree that inattention and alcohol cause a lot of wrecks. Combine inattention and alcohol with increased speed, and you’re guaranteed a disaster.
What’s the secret of the autobahn? Drivers pay more attention and the road itself is designed safely for speed, I imagine. But I don’t know.
But even professional racers (who definitely aren’t distracted or drinking) crash multiple times in their careers.
Bingo!
And that is why I didn’t post speed differential, your example of 100 coming on to 50 mph, as a “cause.” Trucks only run 85 kph (I think, about 50 mph) in Germany and cars routinely come up on them at well beyond 85 kph. If this isn’t a problem on the autobahn, why should it be in the US?
The secret is to look ahead, far ahead, instead of 25 yards in front of your car. Watch sometime when a lane closes due to construction. You always have lots of signs warning it is going to happen far in advance but I routinely see folks recognize their lane ends 25 yards from its end. They either stop or cut someone off in the next lane!
I get what you’re saying, but I still think someone traveling at 100 mph is more likely to have an accident than someone traveling at 50 mph, all other things being equal. I don’t see a way around that, autobahn or anywhere else. The faster you travel, the further ahead you need to look. And the less time you have to react.
I won’t disagree that we might be safer than we are now on the roads even if we all upped our speed by some set margin, but everyone started paying attention, planning ahead, not drinking, not texting, etc. But we’d be safer still at lower speeds, paying attention, planning ahead, etc. That ain’t happening anyway. Some folks make me nervous driving a Wal Mart shopping cart.
I understand what you mean, though. Texting, inattention, drinking, etc. probably cause more accidents than simply “driving too fast”.
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German drivers that want to drive at extremely high speeds on the Autobahn tend to do it at off hours when traffic is sparse. Large trucks do have a speed limit everywhereas you said,and they are required to stay in the right lane unless they are passing another vehicle. Part of paying attention is to know when you are driving too fast for the traffic conditions, in addition to the weather conditions. That implies that speed differential is very important.
Sorry, I should have added some additional context. I’m not talking about interstate highways or other extremely limited access freeways (although higher speed limits on US freeways do tend to correlate with higher fatality rates). I’m talking about the surface streets that comprise the majority of US roadway infrastructure and a large % of people’s daily travel environments.
I do most of my research work in safety for non-motorized road users. And I see first- and second-hand how quickly higher speeds make the [surface] roadways more dangerous for everyone. A pedestrian hit by a car at 20mph has a 90% chance of survival, that drops to 50% chance of survival if hit at 30mph. If a car travelling at 40mph hits a pedestrian, there’s a 90% chance that person is dead.
The issue you are studying is the interaction between pedestrians and cars. Of course speed matters in exactly the same way it matters when you hit a telephone pole. It isn’t the cause of the accident. It affects the outcome, but it is not the cause.
Not in my experience. I have hundreds of miles on German autobahns both weekdays and week ends. My162 mph run was on a weekday with trucks running in the right lane and I was not alone running high speeds. The police will ticket you in uncontrolled speed sections if you are driving faster than conditions and traffic allow. The differential speeds can be quite high but the discipline allows it to be safe.
I touched 190mph in Germany. The speed display on the InterCityExpress (ICE) train was 305.6kph.
I remember well the myth of Montana having no speed limit. The truth was “Reasonable and Prudent” in the daytime and 55mph at night due to the many large critters wandering around in the dark. Oregon was similar. The Interstates were posted “SPEED” 70. Not “SPEED LIMIT” as the basic rule was driving at a speed appropriate for road and weather conditions. Non Interstate highways have always had a 55mph Speed Limit.
I don’t believe it is only the roads. I grew up in the midwest where even in the 60s they make roads extra wide and have nice shoulders, cut the trees way back off the road etc. I now live in the northeast where historic roads are barely wide enough for a car, have telephone poles and trees right up against the travel lane and we have people driving two abreast at ridiculous speeds down these roads. The difference is the capability of cars today. They can accelerate and brake much faster and handle far better than ever. This allows people to do things they wouldn’t have considered years ago. People will pull out in front of oncoming traffic knowing they are doing 2x the speed limit but also knowing their car will likely out accelerate the oncoming traffic and if not, the oncoming cars can brake in time to avoid hitting the car that pulled out. 
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