The Use of the Drive-Thru Lane
Most of you reading this have been to a drive-thru. Be it a bank, fast food establishment or for coffee. For your visit you were likely in a motor vehicle. Duh, right? But what if you don’t have a car or don’t drive? The most obvious is as a pedestrian. Other options might include a bicycle or motor scooter. When I rode a motor scooter I was able to use the drive-thru if they knew I was there. Bicyclists have, for years, complained they have been refused service at banks and at other drive-thru lanes. What about mobility scooters?
A reader sent me a link to an interesting story:
A White Castle in St. Paul, Minnesota, is a 24-hour establishment, but it locks its dining room doors at 11 pm. Unfortunately, its drive-through service is restricted to customers in cars, so the employees refused to serve a 37-year-old woman who pulled up on an electric mobility scooter. Now she says she’s madder than fish grease, which is pretty mad, and she wants to sue them for discriminating against customers who can’t drive.
Fish grease? Anyway, if a business is open is it legal to refuse access to the disabled who are not in a car? Or even the able-bodied not in a car? Our society has become so auto-centric we don’t know how to relate to other humans not in a car. We use their car to judge them — their income & social standing. The lack of a car presumably puts them at the bottom.
As someone who drives a car as well as an electric wheelchair I can tell you I expect service regardless of which “vehicle” I’m using. I hope the woman in the story forces White Castle and such places to examine their policies.
– Steve Patterson
Something similar happened to me at teh Jack in teh Box on S Grand about a year ago – I had just moved into my house and had been doing yard work all day. It was 8:30 and still light out and I was hungry, so I walked the block and a half to teh Jack in the Crack but the dining room was locked. I approached the woman in the drive-through window and asked if I could order from her and was informed that they do not serve people in the drive-through lane that aren’t in cars.
Finally, through my excellent negotiation skills, exquisite charm and boyish good looks, she finally let me order and served me.
Jeff 1, Jack in the Crack, 0.
I suspect that it is less a matter of our society being auto-centric as it is our society being extremely over litigious in nature. The first time a car rounded the corner on the drive through and hit the pedestrian/mobility scooter rider/bicyclist, the victim would have Brown & Crouppen on the phone before you could say “upsize it,” and try to take the restaurant owner for everything they had. I have to say that if I owned a restaurant with a drive through, my policy wouldn’t be any different. Somewhere along the line people stopped learning to be responsible for their own actions, and as a result, society has had to conform in order to don a shroud of protection from greedy nimwits that we keep protecting from natural selection.
I don’t think I agree with you here Steve. The woman was upset because she was denied service, as many college age kids have been (or is it just me?), when they walk through a “drive thru” only lane. They must refuse service for the protection of the individual. Otherwise, there would be people walking through the drive thru at any given hour, including when there is more traffic. I understand this.
The problem is that these fast food places are only accomodating people with cars. These places receive most of their late night business from drivers only, and do not expect people to walk. THIS should be corrected. I understand closing the dining room, but have a place for people to get your food without needing a vehicle. Even if I lived close, I would have to get in the car to get food. I don’t like that at all. I want to be able to walk as many places as possible.
(And to be honest, there are probably many people who want food at 2 am who should not be driving. It would be better if they had the option to get food without a dam car!)
There’s a simple solution here. It’s called a WALK UP window. Some places actually do have them.
I agree with everyone so far. You SHOULD be able to get food without a car. If the only window open is a drive-thru then I can see where they wouldn’t want the liability of a pedestrian in the car path. I’m not sure how to fix this one. Life isn’t fair sometimes.
I suppose if someone wins on ADA grounds that’ll force everyone who wants to stay open to make a walk-up window. [There should be anyway!] This won’t be a quick fix.
. . . or they’ll quit serving at the drive-thru when they close the dining room – no easy fix for late-night munchies other than Slim Jims and chips . . .
. . . and BTW, I was once refused service at a drive-in bank when I rode up on my bicycle (which is technically/legally considered to be a vehicle).
My guess is that if this woman were to sue White Castle , she would lose. They have a pretty good rationale for the policy: the safety of the pedestrians and those not in street legal motor vehicles. Nor does there appear to be any evidence of discriminatory intent.
In cities that are less auto-centric, more “walk up” type windows, which cater to pedestrians, tend to flourish. The real issue is achieving more density.
C Ninja-
I think you are kind of missing the point of litigation. It is to hold people accountable for their actions. Isn’t that the very thing you seem to be advocating? As to the Darwin award nominees (my words, not yours) you indicate shouldn’t be allowed to sue for their injuries, we already have a system in place to prevent recovery for one’s own negligence. It is called comperative fault, and it bars recovery for the percentage of your injuries which you are personally responsible for. While it may be fun to bash dumb people and trial lawyers, the truth is, the world is a lot safer when there is a means to hold people accountable for injuring others, and the courts allow us citizens the ability to do that without forcing the legislative branch to micromanage every minute detail of life. It is actually quite simple, treat others with the standard of care that a reasonably prudent person would, and you won’t cause an injury for which you can be sued.
I understand the safety / liability issue with pedestrians and cars mingling in the drive thru lane – with this being the case, there really ought to be equal means to get food with or without a car. Since fast food restaurants tend to be prevalent in lower income areas, where people are less likely to own or have access to a car, it doesn’t make sense for these places to not offer an option for pedestrians during the late hours. You can restrict dining room hours but still allow customers to come inside and order. There is of course safety concerns in some areas, allowing free access inside for anyone at all hours of the night … so really a walk up window, along with a drive thru window would be a better option. Definitely something that should be looked at for future establishments.
But seriously…. I’m sure these walk-thru customers don’t happen all that often, so give them a break, man, all they want are some sliders!
Walk-up windows are great…a few years ago in Lyon, France, a friend and I were out walking late looking for food and found a McDonalds with a walk-up window (I know, I know, why the hell would you go to McDonalds in France?). Of course, the restaurant didn’t even have a drive-thru…it faced a pedestrian square.
Anything that keeps people from eating fast food is okay in my book. This is like complaining that cigarette boxes are too hard for the blind to open.
I know a guy who lives down the street from 3 restaurants Mickey D’s,Jack in the Crack,& Burger King granted the last one stays open till 1 a.m. on Fri. – Sat. but he has to get in the car and DRIVE THERE after 10 p.m. what a waste of gas. When Jack re-built he should have added a walk-up window. I think we should draft an online petition and send it to the restaurants how hard is to cut a hole in the wall.
Let’s go the other direction on this:
If this goes through, I suppose the trucker unions will be able to sue because their trucks will not fit under the drive-through roof…I want everyone to beserved, but where does it end?
PS: Angelo, I like where you head is at.
To the person who said the injured pedestrian would lose, you may be right, but it doesn’t mean that they won’t get sued, and have to defend themselves for thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars. Put an injured person in front of jury and the jury may feel sympathetic, ‘hey, the person is hurt, the person that hurt them doesn’t have car insurance, and they deserve something for their terrible injuries, it’s only insurance co. money, let’s throw the person some cash.’
I actually didn’t make a comment one way or the other in regards to a possible pedestrian v. fast food chain law suit, but merely a point of view that litigation has its place in society, and persons who cause their own injuries have little chance of success in litigation.
Without litigation, or the theat thereof, we wouldn’t have safety devises in automobiles, child-proof caps on pill bottles, or the rights of blacks to attend formerly all white schools (brown v. board). Without access to the courts, someone could run a red light, and literaly run over you in a cross-walk, and while they may go to jail, you could be left without the use of your legs, and without any recourse.
You would think that any business is glad to have any customers. To refuse them service because they are not in a car is simply bad business. Every business should be thankful for every single customer. When business get really big they forget what made them so big – the customer.
Steve
It isn’t only vehicles hitting pedestrians that is at issue. They are also looking to protect their employees. There was a string of robberies with injuries at fast food drive-ups that were serving walk-up customers. Evidently, it is easier to reach through the window on foot than from your car, and they can’t run the plate that would otherwise be captured on video. Who knew?
^To me, that was the most obvious reason for not serving pedestrians.
Personally, I’m not a big fan of fast food, so it doesn’t matter to me. I tend to only go to places that I can walk to from my office or house. If I’m driving for food, it better be good. When I do go through a drive-through, it is usually on a road trip, when the available choices leave much to be desired. Come to think of it, I can’t stand chain restaurants in general. I’ll take a McGurks or Seamus McDaniels over a fake irish chain restaurant any day. Burger you say? Go to the Royal or Herbies, that trash they serve at McDonalds and BK isn’t worth your hard earned money.
W. Kruse,
I understand fully the intent of litigation. However, I also know that we have a legal system, not a justice system;, one in which multi-million dollar awards are handed out by sympathetic juries to people that burn themselves with the hot coffee they just ordered in a drive through. You cannot deny that the legal system is inundated with frivolous and baseless lawsuits levied merely for the fact that many companies find it cheaper to settle out of court than pursue legal vindication. Without punitive measures to prevent such a “legal lottery” system, it falls upon the company to take whatever means necessary to protect itself from these type of individuals (including the bloodsucking ambulance chasers that not only agree, but count among the base majority of their clientele such cases), including measures which make it inconvenient or encumber the rest of polite society.
CarondeletNinja,
It’s easy to take pot shots at occasional loopy outcomes of tort lawsuits; it’s an inherent part of our system of laws, which vests everyday citizens (i.e., jurors) with great power in deciding the outcome of lawsuits. Even if every result may not be totally just (and really, what legal system could ever achieve that?), taken as a whole, our tort system has definitely made life much safer for all Americans and does a decent job of helping many people who have been wrongfully injured. To think that the McDonald’s hot coffee lawsuit is representative of most tort suits in this nation is false.
In the realm of commercial and contract law, our legal system has contributed greatly to the economic success of United States over the years. The fact that businesses can count on consistent outcomes when conflicts arise between businesses has been a huge advantage to doing business in the United States, with its non-corrupt common law legal system.
In 1985 I went to camp for Catholic School kids (Don Bosco). The kids from Holy Guardian Angels were from the high rise Darst and the low rise Peabody. We were from Central Catholic from St Louis Place and JVL and there were students from St Margaret of Scotland from Shaw. At first we were leery of each other for different reasons. But the reason for the camp was to bring kids from diverse environments together and we stopped “cliquing off” as we called it. After we left we kept in touch. Going to Darst was different because everything was up but going to Shaw was also different because everyone lived so close together. To me both seemed weird because we had so much vacant land and people were spread out and you could see panoramic views from seemingly everywhere. In the mind of a 13 yr old the difference was just P.O.V.
Here is a little background info on the “McDonalds Coffee” suite. I know it is a lot of info, but you might be suprised at what the talking heads don’t tell you.
…At the beginning of the trial, jury foreman Jerry Goens says he “wasn’t convinced as to why I needed to be there to settle a coffee spill.”
At that point, Mr. Goens and the other jurors knew only the basic facts: that two years earlier, Stella Liebeck had bought a 49-cent cup of coffee at the drive-in window of an Albuquerque McDonald’s, and while removing the lid to add cream and sugar had spilled it, causing third-degree burns of the groin, inner thighs and buttocks. Her suit, filed in state court in Albuquerque, claimed the coffee was “defective” because it was so hot.
What the jury didn’t realize initially was the severity of her burns. Told during the trial of Mrs. Liebeck’s seven days in the hospital and her skin grafts, and shown gruesome photographs, jurors began taking the matter more seriously. “It made me come home and tell my wife and daughters don’t drink coffee in the car, at least not hot,” says juror Jack Elliott.
Even more eye-opening was the revelation that McDonald’s had seen such injuries many times before. Company documents showed that in the past decade McDonald’s had received at least 700 reports of coffee burns ranging from mild to third degree, and had settled claims arising from scalding injuries for more than $500,000.
Some observers wonder why McDonald’s, after years of settling coffee-burn cases, chose to take this one to trial. After all, the plaintiff was a sympathetic figure—an articulate, 81-year-old former department store clerk who said under oath that she had never filed suit before. In fact, she said, she never would have filed this one if McDonald’s hadn’t dismissed her requests for compensation for pain and medical bills with an offer of $800.
Then there was the matter of Mrs. Liebeck’s attorney. While recuperating from her injuries in the Santa Fe home of her daughter, Mrs. Liebeck happened to meet a pair of Texas transplants familiar with a Houston attorney who had handled a 1986 hot-coffee lawsuit against McDonald’s. His name was Reed Morgan, and ever since he had deeply believed that McDonald’s coffee is too hot.
Mr. Morgan deposed Christopher Appleton, a McDonald’s quality assurance manager, who said “he was aware of this risk… and had no plans to turn down the heat,” according to Mr. Morgan. McDonald’s settled that case for $27,500…
by Andrea Gerlin
September 1, 1994
The Wall Street Journal
© 1994, Dow Jones & Co., Inc.
What a coincidence that I saw this today! Great minds think alike. Last night my friends talked about how silly it was that where we live it’s faster to walk to Taco Bell than drive there (not that I go that often…) but after 9 pm or so, we’re penalized for wanting to walk off some of that junk food. The link between bad food and cars is oh so strong.
While I understand this is a serious problem for many non-driving folks, there’s also an element of humor in the situation. How funny would a video of people trying to go through a drive-thru in various unorthodox vehicles be? I’m going to make one. First one will be a horse, whether a real one or a broomstick one I haven’t decided. Second one will be a cardboard car, self-powered Flinstone-style. Haha.
Which is one reason I left STL in the first place. I hated the almost absolute dependence on having a car there. I’ve always loved to walk, my entire life. While growing up in the STL suburbs I would often walk to the grocery store or to the library or to meet friends and often enough, just to walk. People in my neighborhood were so suspicious-you really have no idea! I was a clean-cut preppy and people would jump out of their house and run across their lawn and yell, “HEY! What are you doin’ walkin’ around all the time? Get the HELL outta’ here kid!” or “You’re always out walkin’ around! Makes me think you’re up to no good!” Either that or people I knew would hang out of their windows and shout (in pity) “PLEASE let me give you ride!!! Pleeeease!!! Aren’t you embarrassed to walk?!” People think I exaggerate, but St Louis County was/is incredibly pedestrian/bike unfriendly.
I felt vindicated by a 1st season episode of “Mad Men,” where the new divorced woman on the block is looked upon with suspicion. One of the main concerns is, “She’s always out walking. Where does she go?” Finally, she is confronted about her walking habits and asked point blank, “…but where do you go?” She answers, “I just like to walk, it clears my head…” The other woman is dumbfounded by this. THAT mentality is what I was up against.
After college I lived in the CWE, which was more pedestrian friendly and I loved walking to the park and other amenities, but still relied on a car mostly. I moved in 2000, first to Chicago for 5 years and then to NY for the last 4. I’ve given almost a decade to public transportation and while I still love to walk, I must admit, I miss driving. I’ve waited in the bitter Chicago cold for buses that never come, sat on trains for hours on end, I leave for work over an hour early for what would normally be a 20 minute drive by car to stand for an hour on a crowded, smelly subway…I could go on. The liberal in me cringes to admit it, but there is a part of me that misses getting in a big car, driving 5 minutes away, pulling into into a giant suburban lot, parking right in front of the door and repeating the process over and over throughout the day. I feel a bit guilty, but I also feel I’ve put in my 10 years. Does that make me a bad person?
RJH – It sounds from your current routine, you’d be happier in St. Louis. Whether in a city neighborhood or quiet suburb, you’d have fewer hassles. Life in New York sounds expensive, rushed, and generally unfriendly. Oh, and you added “smelly”.
RJH^
NY and Chicago public transportation has the problem of all forms of transportation in metropolitan areas. It can’t handle rush hour traffic. If you lived in Atlanta or LA you’d be stuck in traffic for an hour on average each way. It would cost you significantly more in gas and auto costs but you could listen to your favorite music with fairly good speakers.
St Louis has less of those problems because it’s smaller. Much smaller. Still, improvements in density could improve effectiveness of Metro, make walking an option and make commutes in general shorter. Either way there are benefits to living in a hectic place such as NY or LA: food, theatre, shopping, sports, etc. You get some of that in STL but not nearly the selection as larger cities. I guess it depends on what you want out of life.
Most fast food places have that policy because of the customers safety is in mind. A car could have come around the corner and crashed in to her. If the cars were staying a respectable distance, alright, fine, still doesn’t change the fact that you’re going through the drive through in what society considers a powered wheel chair. In most fast food places skateboarders, rollerbladers, sometimes bicyclists (depends on the area), and mobility scooters will fall in under the pedestrian category and the crew will simply be told they are not supposed to serve you. It doesn’t mean they won’t 80-90% of the time, but legally they could get into trouble for doing it if something happens. I’ve seen other articles like this, they sit low to the ground and don’t have reflectors. Would you really drive something like that through a drive thru and feel safe?
Most fast food places have that policy because of the customers safety is in mind. A car could have come around the corner and crashed in to her. If the cars were staying a respectable distance, alright, fine, still doesn’t change the fact that you’re going through the drive through in what society considers a powered wheel chair. In most fast food places skateboarders, rollerbladers, sometimes bicyclists (depends on the area), and mobility scooters will fall in under the pedestrian category and the crew will simply be told they are not supposed to serve you. It doesn’t mean they won’t 80-90% of the time, but legally they could get into trouble for doing it if something happens. I’ve seen other articles like this, they sit low to the ground and don’t have reflectors. Would you really drive something like that through a drive thru and feel safe?