> I'm amazed how people just take their cars to a pub and drive back home like it's nothing

In England and Wales people often take their children to pubs. So not everyone's drinking alcohol - many are having food or just non-alcoholic drinks.

If you think someone going to a restaurant or café and driving home isn't madness, then neither is someone going to the pub in England or Wales.

I mean not all adults in pubs are drinking.

My impression was that drink driving is fairly uncommon and is frowned upon socially in the UK these days, obviously there will be exceptions and I can imagine in remote places where the risk of being stopped is very low, this still happens frequently. That said, I live in London so don’t drive regularly so I could be way off the mark, but I’d be surprised if drinking over the limit (>1 pint I guess?) was a common thing.

> Coming from a country with a huge alcoholism problem, I welcome any trend that shows decrease in alcohol consumption.

Indeed, this seems like a healthy progression of things. The dangers of alcohol abuse are now well known and it's disappointing that so many activities still revolve around the use of the substance.

What's at issue here, though, is that there's nothing obvious to replace these types of places for social gathering in common spaces.

Wait really? For some reason I thought the transit was great in Cities in England… that would seem like the better option, no?

Public transport is pretty good in the UK, but not to the point of being able to live without a car for a large portion of the population. In London, there is the tube and driving in the city is quite dreadful, so I guess that is the exception, but I would say that the UK is pretty car-centric overall.

>there is the tube and driving in the city is quite dreadful

It’s not that bad, at least in Westminster/RBKC. Westminster has super liberal parking policies, so you can park anywhere except TFL red routes without getting your car towed. Traffic is so and so, but the stress of parking is completely eliminated.

The tube? Hot, smelly, crowded. I’d rather sit in my air conditioned car.

Interesting, i thought covid would at least compel the improvement of air circulation/conditioning systems in public transit.

I wish. I occasionally have to take the tube, and it’s awful. The temperatures and humidity can get super high, turning everybody on the train into a sweaty mess.

They may not live in a city. Even tiny villages in the UK will have a pub and some pubs are literally just on their own in the middle of nowhere. I grew up in a small town in eastern England and people would drive from the surrounding villages to go to the pubs there and then drive home after several drinks. Drink driving outside of cities is unfortunately very common.

Transit is great in the cities, but pubs are far more socially important in towns and villages.