The state lines thing I took without question. Smokey and the Bandit was a slice of pure Americana for us here in the UK, and what fascinated me more was the use of CB radios.
CB was illegal here in the UK until about 1981, and that slowed its growth significantly. And our rolling landscape meant they had less utility anyway. So CB radios were exotic and farfetched - definitely adding to the allure of the film.
Crazy alcohol laws? We’d all seen gangster films set in the prohibition era, or read stories about it. We had no doubt that the USA could screw up something as simple as booze laws. But everyone on the highway having a CB radio? Well now, that’s both strange and cool! 
