Why do federal laws prohibit alcoholic beverages on buses yet permit the sale of alcoholic beverages on airlines?
I have thoughts on this matter, but they aren’t GQ answers.
WAG - probably for the same reason as open container laws: the driver of the bus can’t hand off his booze to the nearest passenger and claim innocence.
What PaulParkhead WAGed. Also, buses don’t have a crew that would be responsible for monitoring and adhering to state booze laws.
Airlines are not public transportation. (Meaning that it is not a publicly-funded transportation system, no matter how many subsidies and government support they may recive.)
Does that mean that passengers on a privately run coach can consume alcohol?
Yup.
from: Bus for Sale Guide
…
Best of my knowledge, the Greyhound bus system, buyer of Trailways, its last competitor, is not a publicly-funded transportation system.
The Greyhound website mentions that federal law prohibits smoking, but its policy of “zero tolerance for alcohol, drugs, weapons and unruly behavior” is not stated to be a federal government mandate. Do you have a cite that federal law prohibits alcohol sales on buses?
On Amtrak they have a dining car where you can get beer or wine. I think Amtrak is quasi-public (federally subsidized).
And if you charter a bus, I think the passengers can drink alcohol. Also in a limousine or taxi. I don’t know what federal law you’re talking about.
I don’t know what the laws may be, or why they may be, but I suggest that a policy consideration might be whether or not the operator is isolated from/protected from the passengers (usually bus drivers are not isolated, whereas usually train engineers and pilots of large planes are), and whether there is another person who can attend to the passengers, either formally (e.g. flight attendant or conductor) or informally (e.g. charter group organizer).
None of that makes sense. Noone thinks the commercial driver is gonna start boozing, handing off his open container to passangers, or that people on a vehicle can’t drink unless they’re being chaperoned.
The reason is simple: on a public bus you’ll get drunks or bums or kids bothering all the other passengers. Bad enough you have to let them in so they can get home, but, for various reasons, it’s easy to draw the line and not let them drink on there. On an airplane, people are classy. On a privately-chartered something, you don’t have bystanders to piss off.
According to the conductors on the Amtrak train I rode a few weekends ago, it’s fine to drink their booze but if you drink alcohol they didn’t sell you it is a federal crime and they’ll boot you off the train. Now, I believe the second part is certainly true, but perhaps the first is just bluster.
On the other hand, there are all sorts of bizarre rules about alcohol in the US so it may very well be true.
Think it through in the other direction. The problem is not that a drinking driver would pass booze to a passenger. The problem is that a drinking passenger might sufficiently distract or physically assault the driver to the degree that an accident is caused. In a large passenger plane or in a train, a drunken passenger cannot get at the pilot or engineer, but in a bus, there is no such protection.
BTW, I am currently working on a case in which an intercity bus was rolled over on the highway by a drug addled passenger who came up behind the driver and grabbed the steering wheel.
They don’t. Most bus lines, whether local or interstate, have their own regulations prohibiting alcohol because buses don’t carry a crew. They have only the driver, and it’s hard for the driver to deal with unruly passengers. Trains and airplanes have crews and serve food and beverages. They have an incentive to allow alcohol because they can sell it for profit, and they have crews in place to deal with the occasional drunkard.
Around here there are signs on every bus that cite the local ordinances banning food, smoking and alcohol. However, they don’t cite any federal regulations.
This is not a problem in Germany. I have seen many drinking on pub trans there, and have done so myself.
The ferries on SF bay have a bar, making them a great way to get home.
Hmm. I’ve bought wine while grocery shopping and taken it home on the bus. It’s not like I was swigging out of the bottle and passing it to the driver, but it was pretty obvious I had a wine bottle in my shopping. Nobody said anything to me about it. Of course, nobody ever said anything me about my tendency to drink coffee on the bus, either.
This is a whoosh, right?