The Bygone Ubiquity of “Drinking and Driving” (and Good Riddance to It)

After binging Black Flag for several hours the other day, I woke up this morning with “Drinking and Diving” running through my head on repeat.

https://youtu.be/_BA9S4EMRyU?si=0pvw2mNOKzQSnzX7

Which got me thinking about how ubiquitous it was in the 1970s and 80s to get hammered, try and drive home, and wreck yourself and other people unfortunate enough to be in your way. “I drive better when I’m drunk” was something people said with a straight face back then, and — like smoking — that was such a part of the American cultural landscape that it seemed like just one of those things people do.

Thankfully, social condemnation (like this song), mixed with stiff legal punishments, significantly reduced this tendency over the intervening decades. Sure, people still drive drunk or high, but it’s no longer casually acceptable to “just mind your own business” when a wasted person insists they’re perfectly fine to get behind the wheel.

My generation (or at least people claiming to speak for my generations, anyway) love posting memes about how “feral” and “free” things were back in that era’s “good old days.”

As someone whose teenage-theater friend wound up in a body cast (after her best friend died horribly right in front of her) when they got hit by a drunk driver on the way to that night’s performance, I’m perfectly okay with this particular manifestation of “the nanny state.”

Also, damned if this video isn’t Example A in the archive of Black Flag’s ENORMOUS influence on the “grunge” wave of the late 1980s and early 1990s.