PRINTHold my beer
Missouri law allows open containers for everyone but the driver
Stockxpert
July 1, 2009 | 12:00 p.m. CST
Next time you’re pulled over by a Highway Patrol officer in Missouri, don’t bother to drop your beer. As long as you don’t raise it to your lips, you’re good. And your passengers are welcome to keep boozing.
Colloquially dubbed the “Hold My Beer Law,” the absence of a statewide open container ban for vehicles means that passengers are allowed to drink. Although a host of municipalities, including Columbia, have outlawed open containers within their city limits, long stretches of Missouri roads are free game for as many “road beers” as a passenger can drink.
Lieutenant John Hotz of the Missouri Highway Patrol says that as long as drivers and passengers are old enough to legally possess alcoholic beverages, open containers in a vehicle won’t affect traffic stop protocol. “The only way we can make an arrest for violation of the state’s drinking and driving statute is if we see the driver physically drinking,” he says.
Missouri is one of 11 states that haven’t fully conformed to federal guidelines mandated by the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21). Only one state, Mississippi, allows drivers to drink while they operate a vehicle as long as they remain legally sober. Missouri neighbors Kansas and Oklahoma are among the strictest in the nation at enforcing alcohol laws, but the Missouri legislature hasn’t given in to peer pressure.
This long-standing trend in the state is due in no small part to St. Louis-based Anheuser-Busch. The legal limit for driving in Missouri was decreased from .10 to .08 only after Anheuser-Busch announced it would no longer oppose the change in 2001. That’s basically the difference between being able to tie your shoes and being able to tie your shoes well, but it’s a much wider gap for beersellers. Any change in Missouri’s permissive stance, such as adding an open container law in vehicles, is bad news for the alcohol and entertainment industry.
The federal law encourages states to outlaw open containers by changing the earmarks for transportation funding. Under TEA-21, federal standards require a complete ban on open containers in vehicles, and states not conforming must divert funds from road maintenance into alcohol education, enforcement and crash prevention. The Fed can’t tell states what to do, but they’re not against making this money-backed suggestion.
The rub is about $12 million less each year for road maintenance in Missouri, according to MoDOT spokeswoman Kristi Jamison. The trade-off is somewhat political; Missouri asserts its sovereignty by refusing to overstep the boundaries of private property, and the diverted money helps ameliorate drunk driving problems in the state. “One of the positive benefits is that it also goes to law enforcement to help with DUI enforcements, whether through overtime or equipment to help out,” Jamison says, and adds that the funds also contribute to 500 miles of guard cable on highway dividers.
But Missouri’s legislative inaction could be costing more than money to fix roads. According to the most recent data from the Highway Patrol, one person is killed or injured in drinking-related traffic crashes every 1.7 hours in Missouri. Hotz says that troopers mostly see open containers in the same sorts of situations in which they make DWI arrests in the late night and early morning hours.
Although MoDOT tried to change the open container laws in 2006, the bill stalled in the legislature. Instead, the department is focused on seatbelt law enforcement. After all, passengers are only safe with their “road beer” if they’ve got seatbelts on, too.
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