Anybody on here ever drink alcohol while driving?
Apparently six states have no laws making it illegal to operate a vehicle with an open container: West Virginia, Connecticut, Delaware, Missouri, Arkansas, and Mississippi. I think you just can't be over the BAC.
I just had just cracked a tallboy at a BYOB, and then the club kicked everyone out because they wanted to close down twenty minutes early. I did not want to pitch a good beer, so I put it in the cupholder and drove home sipping it along the way. This was not in one of the six above states. I was still very sober and nowhere near impaired, but if a cop pulled me over, I probably would have been fucked and lost my drivers license.
I think open containers in vehicles must be way more common than people think. I was volunteering on an Adopt A Highway project a while back, and there must've been thirty or forty beer cans or bottles every eighth of a mile on the shoulder and ditch. These obviously came from people tossing the beer containers out of their cars.
In Louisiana, there is a loophole where it is legal to transport daiquiris (slushies with alcohol) in your vehicle as long as you don't consume it or put a straw in it until you get home. Once I purchased a daiquiri from a place in Metairie that had a drive-thru. (Yes, they actually sold alcoholic Slurpees via a drive-thru if you did not want to go inside.) The temptation was too great and I started sucking it down while cruising down Esplanade Avenue. Oops.
Not a big drinker thus I've never driven with alcohol in my car - in the case you stated in hindsight it should be obvious the consequences of getting busted is not worth not tossing out a beer that likely costs under $10.