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Fear not, for the streets are safe again. Or the ice rink, at least. Police arrested the driver of an ice resurfacer at a rink in Apple Valley, Minnesota after people reported that he drove erratically:
Dornstreich, who coaches the Eastview Hockey Association’s PeeWee C team, said he’d noticed that the rink attendant’s eyes were red and that he smelled like the energy drink Red Bull before his team took the ice.
“He looked like I do when I have my allergy attacks,” Dornstreich said. “I didn’t really think anything of it. He didn’t slur his words. He was very alert, got me the keys, we set up the music system and I was on my way.”
Before the PeeWee C players, ages 11 to 13, took the ice, Dornstreich said he noticed that the rink attendant was “making stripes on the ice.” But the driver went back and corrected all his mistakes. After the game it was a different story, though.
While Dornstreich was working with a referee, a parent ran over to say that the rink attendant was “weaving all over, slurring his words.”
But he wasn’t on a public road. Can he be prosecuted for drunk driving? Under Minnesota law, yes:
People have been arrested in Minnesota for driving under the influence on everything from a souped-up motorized recliner to a farm tractor. State law says a DWI can result from driving any kind of a motorized vehicle, pretty much anywhere — a forklift driver at work, a Bobcat driver plowing city sidewalks, a riding lawn mower in a yard.
The Minnesota Court of Appeals did, however, say in 2011 that a physically disabled man driving a motorized scooter could not be convicted of drunken driving. The law makes an exception for “an electric personal assistive mobility device” and the court said the scooter was a wheelchair, not a motor vehicle.
Link -via Dave Barry | Photo (unrelated) by Flickr user ejhogbin
An eighteen year old girl in Aurora, Illinois was arrested for drunk driving and driving without a tire on one of her wheels. But she had a good reason:
She told deputies she was extremely upset with her boyfriend because she did not get to see the new “Twilight” movie as they were supposed to do, according to a police report.
It’s hard to be a teenager these days, especially when you have a crummy boyfriend like that.
Link -via Dave Barry | Image: Summit Entertainment
So do you get drunk in order to fulfill the message on your t-shirt, or do you put on the t-shirt because you plan to get drunk?
A man wearing a t-shirt reading “I’m A Drunk” crashed into a police car early Thursday on Long Island and is being charged with driving while intoxicated, police said. [...]
The entire message on his t-shirt reads “I’m Not An Alcoholic, I’m A Drunk. Alcoholics Go to Meetings.”
There are so many different crimes that people can commit. Surely there is a market for a t-shirt for each one!
Link -via Dave Barry | Photo: Flickr user Dan4th
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The conundrum is: you you want to look cool, or avoid being haunted by your dead friend for the rest of your life? This anti-drunk driving ad is from New Zealand. -via reddit
A man in Noosa, Australia was arrested for driving down a road on a motorized beer cooler while intoxicated. The defendant:
[...] faces charges of driving under the influence and driving without a license after police caught him on the makeshift vehicle, which was powered by a 50cc engine.
The defendant’s lawyers are currently challenging the notion that the cooler constitutes a vehicle.
Link -via MArooned | Photo (unrelated) via eBay seller williesnoop
Police in Timaru, New Zealand, pulled over a 15-year-old on State Highway 1 near Pareora and gave him a breathalyzer test. The unnamed driver registered three times the legal alcohol limit for teenage drivers. He was taken to the police station, where his mother was summoned to retrieve him.
She was subsequently stopped and arrested for drink-driving on Craigie Ave at about 2.14am, after blowing 776 mcg, nearly twice the adult limit of 400.
But it wasn’t over there.
The woman then rang her partner to come and pick them both up. He was stopped and arrested on North St at about 3am, when he blew 559mcg.
Supposedly the family was reunited -in jail. Link -via Arbroath
Talking about driving your point home! Pictured above is a billboard created by the government of Nizhniy Novgorod, Russia, to discourage drunk driving. The text on the back side, according to English Russia, reads “Your body could have been here.”
Link via Jalopnik | Photo: English Russia
James. J. Johnson drove his truck into a house in Webster, Massachusetts. He blamed the crash on the dogs running loose in his truck.
James. J. Johnson said the dogs make him lose control of his vehicle. But Webster police officers determined there were no dogs, police said.
Officers also determined Johnson had been drinking, police said. Johnson was charged with operating under the influence of alcohol, marked lanes violation, negligent operation of a motor vehicle and destruction of property.
One has to wonder what exactly made the police think that Johnson may have been drinking. Link -via Arbroath
File this under "might as well." New Zealander named Paul Nigel Sneddon was driving drunk and got himself into an accident. While waiting for rescuers in an overturned car, he decided that he might as well have another beer!
Speaking [after his trial], Sneddon said he was relieved no-one had been hurt. He was in a "dark place" that night, having lost his job at the Winter Family Bakery four days earlier and heard about his father’s prostate cancer on the same day.
"I’m separated from my wife, I’ve got no friends, no-one comes to visit me and that job was my whole life," he said. "So to remove that was to remove my purpose in life."
Sneddon said the news, coupled with the stress of not being able to afford rent on his one-bedroom flat, left him feeling "mentally unstable".
"I went for a drive to the supermarket and it was absolutely pouring down. It all happened so quick. Maybe I was speeding, maybe I blacked out for a second – I don’t really know. I was lying there, trying to get the doors open but couldn’t. I remember the inside light not working and thinking, `It’s not like I’m going to read a book,’ so I opened another can."
It was a stupid thing to do and he had only himself to blame, he said.
Losing his licence and car had hurt his chances of finding work and magnified his problems.
Link (Photo: Murray Wilson/Manawatu Standard)
Paul Hutton of Essex, UK, was stopped by police for driving a children’s toy car while drunk. The Barbie-branded vehicle has a top speed of 4 mph. Hutton won’t be allowed to drive for another three years:
Mr Hutton, was found to be twice the drink-drive limit, he said.
Appearing before magistrates last week, he admitted driving the toy car while drunk.
He was given a mandatory three-year ban because he had received another drink-drive ban within the past ten years.
Link | Photo: Giz Kid
You don’t have to be actually driving a car to be arrested for drunk driving. People have been arrested while operating a horse-and-buggy, a golf cart, or even a couch.
In perhaps the most absurd DUI case ever recorded, Dennis LeRoy Anderson, a 62 year old Minnesota couch potato with far too much time on his hands, was charged with DUI after crashing his motorized La-Z-Boy couch into a parked car. On October 22nd, 2009, Anderson swigged down far too many beers before taking his hot rod couch out for a spin around town. The couch, which was powered by a lawn mower engine, came strapped with a music-pumping boom box, a living room lamp, and cup holders to store his beer while steering.
Link -via Gorilla Mask
Mary Strey called police in Clark County, Wisconsin to report a drunk driver. What made this call so unusual was that she was reporting on herself!
“Somebody’s really drunk driving down Granton Road,” she told the 911 dispatcher.
The dispatcher asked if the Strey was behind the drunk driver, to which she replied “No, I am them.”
The dispatcher asked, “Okay, so you’re calling to report you’re driving drunk?”
“Yes,” Strey said.
Strey pulled over and waited for the responding officer, who gave her a Breathalyzer test which showed her blood alcohol level was .19. Strey is due in court over the matter in December. Link -via Arbroath
