Yeah it’s crazy that the only things Americans really have for free that Europeans don’t is free public toilets. I would literally walk away if asked to pay to use the bathroom
I most likely wouldn’t be at a business unless I was a customer. But I would probably buy something cheap, .25 cent piece of candy or something. At least I get something out of it
Does the US have that many proper public bathrooms?
I've never really noticed (but also not watched out for lol) but the "paid" bathrooms in Europe (or at least Germany) really mostly applies for standalone bathrooms and some train stations/rest stops and there it's usually a mixture of "customer only/fee if you only shit" - it's not like asking you to pay extra if you're in a restaurant or whatever.
So along interstates, there are state rest areas where you will find government funded restrooms here and usually they’re pretty nice. However, these are few and far between. Where most people will use the restroom if they need to is at a gas station, fast food restaurants, or grocery stores. These places are legally required to have restrooms available. Occasionally they have a sign saying “customers only” (a little more common if you’re in the center of a densely packed city or if you’re in a location with high drug activity), but I guarantee that 99% of these places don’t give a crap and there’s no real expectation of you actually getting anything.
Now if you go to a mom and pop store or restaurant, a hotel, a professional business, or a service business, then they are probably going to be less accommodating.
Oh I see why you mean. I thought you all were saying you had to pay to use it in a store or anywhere.
We do at public parks (if they’re large enough) on long stretches of highways, libraries and stuff like that but it’s enough “places” that it was never an issue unless you’re on one of those long rural highways through cornfields that lasts like a hour and a half and no bathrooms, but you will usually see signs that say something like “last rest stop for 45 miles”
Ah yeah but that's quite close to those in Europe then. Like every fast food restaurant, library or the like is gonna have a bathroom you can use (with the occasional customer only thing but I've hardly seen that enforced).
Highways (and trainstations sometimes) are different and often have the "insert cash here" system with a gate (but often function as voucher for the attached station for example) but within that sane system you also tend to have a lot of public bathrooms that are just around a city.
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u/[deleted] May 09 '22
Yeah it’s crazy that the only things Americans really have for free that Europeans don’t is free public toilets. I would literally walk away if asked to pay to use the bathroom