this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2025
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Mildly Interesting

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[–] pulsewidth@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

I remember reading years back that Mississippi is the only state where it's legal for the driver to drink and drive (as long as they keep it below 0.08). Multiple defenders on Reddit said its safe because its still below the legal limit.

Couldnt be related, could it? Nahhh

https://dui.drivinglaws.org/resources/can-a-passenger-drink-alcohol.htm

[–] Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world 2 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

I don't know much about Mississippi, but I know that in neighboring Louisiana, there are drive-through daiquiri places.

the fine print of the law says that the open container law is not applicable to containers with frozen alcoholic beverage where the lid is intact and no straw is protruding through the lid.

In most cases, daiquiris adhere to the “tape rule.” Most daiquiri shops will put a piece of tape over the straw hold on the lid. If this tape is removed or broken then the drink is considered an open container.

So a piece of tape counts as a "seal." They're not even trying.

[–] pulsewidth@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

Ah yes, a piece of tape. Tape can definitely not be lifted and replaced, right?

I took a quick looks and seems like Mississippi has many drive through daiquiris bars also.

https://m.yelp.com/search?cflt=drivethrubars&find_loc=Gulfport%2C+MS

[–] Allemaniac@lemmy.world 6 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

getting a drivers license in mississippi is basically show up to the DMV, suck a cock and drive home or what?

[–] pulsewidth@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago

Mississippi has drive-through combo shops: liquor store / DMV / KFC.

Saves time on your way to and home from church.

[–] Hupf@feddit.org 4 points 5 hours ago

21 Mississippi, 22 Mississippi...

Count van Count

[–] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 7 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

Victoria is that low cos they don’t fuck around when it comes to driving fines. The speed limit means limit, and they’re cracking down hard on drivers using phones.

[–] alansuspect@aussie.zone 1 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Victorians are some of the worst/dangerous drivers I've seen, but I'm not in Victoria.

[–] Walk_blesseD@piefed.blahaj.zone 1 points 3 hours ago

I have seen worse but yeah, we have more than our fair share of dickheads on the road.

[–] Delphia@lemmy.world -2 points 5 hours ago (3 children)

I mean,Australia has way less snow than the US, that definitely has to account for a chunk of the difference in our numbers.

[–] pupbiru@aussie.zone 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

from existing in a car in the US on a few occasions and living in australia i’d wager a HUGE amount of the difference is attitude… holy SHIT do yall speed like crazy! 15-20mph over the limit just seems to be standard… 15kph over the limit here in aus you literally watch them pass every other car and call them a dickhead - and they’ll almost certainly get a speeding fine

[–] Delphia@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

I am Australian, Ive been doing track days, drift days and have done a few amateur rallys too over the last 20 years and Ive never been more scared driving than a rental car in Austria in winter on holiday. Ice and snow is a whole different skillset.

[–] pupbiru@aussie.zone 1 points 2 hours ago

also true, but as other have said, mississippi doesn’t really get snow so given the massive difference between them and vic, i don’t think snow is really a particularly big contributor

[–] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 5 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Is this specifically relating to the difference between Victoria and Mississippi?

[–] Delphia@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago

Between Australia and the US in general.

[–] mojofrododojo@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago

Mississippi gets negligible amounts of snowfall and it rarely sticks.

[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world -2 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

Oh come on. I don’t think there’s another country on the planet as car-dependent as the US. We have more cars, we drive far, far more than these countries, so of course there will be more deaths. Try it per person/mile driven and I bet the numbers shift quite a bit and it won’t be so dramatic, but the US will still come out “ahead.” On average I’d also bet the US has far higher average travel speed as well generating a higher possibility of fatal accidents.

Edit: Here. Sort by billion km driven. US is #8.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate

Still high, but in context the OP doesn’t offer.

[–] pulsewidth@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

USA is definitely the most car-brained nation, but I don't think that miles-travelled alone stacks up when comparing states.

As an example for 2022 data from FHWA it shows that Mississippians drove 17,699 miles average, while Minnesotans drove more, at 17,887 miles. Yet Mississippi has more than triple the road fatalities.

Even if you take Mississippi as an outlier, many other states are well over double Minnesota, with similar miles-driven: South Carolina, New Mexico, Oklahoma.

[–] DrWorm@piefed.social 73 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Mississippi is always the worst of any statistic

[–] Geometrinen_Gepardi@sopuli.xyz 26 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I understand this is largely due to Americans wanting to get drunk like everyone else but also having to drive everywhere.

[–] apfelwoiSchoppen@lemmy.world 30 points 1 day ago (4 children)

And gigantic motor vehicles.

[–] Botzo@lemmy.world 5 points 17 hours ago

There are so many dumb regulations and circumstances that functionally push people to giant vehicles.

For instance: I replaced my 2016 VW golf base model with an electric F150 this year for a multitude of reasons. I got a refund from insurance (with the same coverage). None of this makes sense except that I'm less likely to be injured by other motorists in my 3.5ton truck. I found this depressing.

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[–] Lembot_0004@discuss.online 27 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Ok, noted: New York is almost on par with civilized regions.

[–] funkajunk@lemmy.world 24 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

That might be skewed as most of their population are in New York City, and more than half of the city doesn't even own a car.

[–] The_v@lemmy.world 22 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

That's pretty much the point of the chart. Better public infrastructure decrease the deaths from cars.

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[–] Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 5 points 18 hours ago (5 children)

America is more in the middle of the road when you look at the whole globe, and don’t just select a few counties with lower death rates.

https://www.who.int/data/gho/data/indicators/indicator-details/GHO/estimated-road-traffic-death-rate-(per-100-000-population)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate

Africa is currently the reigning champ for vehicle related deaths.

[–] breecher@sh.itjust.works 9 points 5 hours ago

Yes, but that does not make it any better, since the US should be compared to other Western developed countries. That is like people saying that the number of gun deaths in the US isn't that bad because they are worse in Ukraine or Syria, you know, active war zones.

[–] Allemaniac@lemmy.world 6 points 5 hours ago

yes but whole africa is developing nations with ultra bad infrastructure like roads and intersections. You should be comparing USA to peering nations, like western europe or countries of the commonwealth. Unless you admit that USA is also third world shit hole

[–] Samskara@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 hours ago

Saudi Arabia, WTF?

[–] bier@feddit.nl 10 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

The Netherlands has 4.19

The Netherlands is close in size to Maryland, and close in the number of inhabitants as New York. Also half of the traffic is cars and half is bicycles. It's pretty insane how bad Mississippi is.

[–] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world 3 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

I tried looking into why Mississippi was so far worse. Mostly just finding people self report texting and driving more there, infrastructure is shitty, enforcement is shitty, DUIs are high they recently just upped the civil fine of texting while driving from $25 to $100.

For fun I looked to see what Mississippi would be like if it was its own country, and do to GDP it was compared to Morocco and Kenya.

Car Deaths per 100,000

Mississippi: 26 Morocco: 17.29 Kenya: 28

Kenya is 4x as dense as Mississippi is though, so still hard to say Mississippi is safer than Kenya. It's just numbers

[–] Allemaniac@lemmy.world 1 points 5 hours ago (3 children)

tried googling it also and prompted "which state is easiest to get drivers license?" and one answer was "probably washington, you dont have to parallel park there, just attempt it" and it told me everything I need to know about the safety of US roads

[–] mojofrododojo@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

the local driving schools (plural, there are a bunch) use the park nearby to teach parallel parking. I don't think the avg driver in WA parks any worse than texas, illinois, virginia, ca or ny state. YMMV there are outstanding assholes everywhere, but I do have the privilege of a large number of places lived / driven.

[–] nwtreeoctopus@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 hours ago

Yet, Washington has one of the lowest rates on this scale. Maybe it's because you have to go to driving school if you want a license before 18?

[–] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

That's a good amount of states, at least 10 I'm sure. Parallel parking in the U.S. is rare. I remember my mother telling me in her late 50s she had never done it since her driving test back in 77. I used to do it when I'd go into cities but it is rare to find anywhere that requires it. Some vehicles are also so big here that if someone parallel parks a truck 5cm off the curb cars will have to drive into oncoming traffic to go around them. Thankfully places are starting to crack down on that.

[–] Allemaniac@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

didnt even think about too wide cars using parallel parking in cities. I mean we have the occassional F150 in Munic downtown blocking all trams and traffic because they can't fit europoor parking lots, but it's always a spectacle and the owners are more often than not scolded for driving these into crowded spaces where they clearly dont fit. But if this occurance was daily, I bet our cities would only build parking houses too instead of parallels

Most places I have lived in the U.S. have plazas, giant parking lots, with stores that loop around 2 sides into a corner for the most part. They aren't designed to be walked to. Bicycling to them is often tough as well. The mom and pops shops are mostly dead, so groceries, appliances, movies, whatever it is you are looking for are in Walmart, Target, Bestbuy, and other failing stores like Macy's, Dillard's, JCPenney, etc. all resteraunts are either surrounded by a parking lot, or in a plaza. Fast food is everywhere, and neighborhoods are miles from stores. The jurisdictions don't allow commercial propertys near many neighborhoods. Slowly we are seeing more mix, but it's a last 10 year change that I have noticed.

[–] FarraigePlaisteach@lemmy.world 11 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

I think it’s fair to compare like with like. Many African countries have poor infrastructure, inadequate enforcement of traffic laws, rapid urbanization, unsafe vehicles, and limited emergency medical services. Its easy for a Western country to look better compared to that, but is it a fair comparison?

[–] AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 4 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Well, if you're comparing the US south, it might be fitting.

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