'A Trumbull County (Ohio) sheriff's deputy pulled over an Amish buggy on Donley Road early on the morning of Sept. 15 after the officer noticed a few oddities about the vehicle. For one, there were two Amish men inside who were drinking, and on the buggy's roof rode a 12-pack of beer. And, according to Fox 8, the old-fashioned conveyance sported an unlikely modern convenience: a stereo system with large speakers. As soon as the buggy came to a stop, the two men jumped out and escaped into heavy woods near the road. Meanwhile, the horse, trailing the buggy, took off. The officer was able to catch up with the horse and have the buggy towed; the drivers were still at large. The buggy "is a vehicle, it's on the roadway and the ... laws do apply," said Chief Deputy Joe Dragovich. "You're not allowed to drink and drive or operate a buggy.'
Don’t you wish reporters could write? Must be that rare Porsche buggy.
I’ve seen stories with people getting DUIs on riding mowers. Motorized wheelchairs too.
The horse and buggy has lane control and collision avoidance. This is as good as features on some late model cars.
All kidding aside, I don’t drink except for a glass of wine a month or a hard lemonaide after a hot day in the garage, but like I said before, I think these arrests are way overboard. A person tries to do the right thing and gets arrested. In Duluth some years ago a guy got arrested for driving his motorized easy chair and they sold it at auction. Then someone riding their horse to the bar, and lawn mower. This is ridiculous. Or even sleeping in his car so that he is not driving under the influence.
We’ve had this discussion before and the purists say well he’s on the road but a hazard to others. OK, I’ll buy that if he is weaving with his horse or lawn mower into the driving lane and creating a hazard. Sans that, leave them alone. Some of these folks have seen enough in their lives and leave them alone-in my humble opinion anyway. It’s better than being on drugs or smoking pot.
In defense of the LEO, with beer and a boom box the horse and buggy could have been stolen.
Have read of people that have had their licenses revoked for DUI driving lawnmowers on public streets.
AKA George Jone’s
You and I don’t agree on much around here, but I absolutely believe that our state is insane with regards to DUI. I’ve mentioned before on here that there was a case in the Twin Cities where a guy got drunk in his apartment. He went down to his car to get something and passed out in the driver’s seat. He never drove the car. The arresting officer admitted that the guy never drove the car because he felt the hood and found that the engine was cold. Despite having never driven the car, he was judged to be in “care command and control” of the vehicle and therefore was “driving” drunk.
MADD pushed for entirely overboard laws like this and was successful in a large number of states. The pendulum needs to swing back to sanity.
On the flip side, I also think that people who actually are driving while drunk get off entirely too easily. A number of years back there was a report of a guy from, if I recall, northern MN who had something like 19 DUIs on his record and was still driving around.
In my opinion, we need to restructure the laws so that you can only get a DUI if you are actually driving, and actually drunk – and I mean physically drunk, as in, impaired. Not “we draw absolutely no distinction between 1 beer and a whole bottle of bourbon” --but when you do get a DUI, you lose your license and your car on the first offense, and the second offense is prison time.
Buckley Michigan?
And horses, and bicycles…
Drunk driving tests are often too easy to pass…
More rigorous drunk driving tests would help…
CSA
This happened in Ga quite a few year’s ago. A guy was moonlighting as a clown for kid;s party’s he worked late & was speeding so he would not be late for the party & was pulled over for speeding the cop told him if he could give him an excuse
that he had not heard before he would let him go. The guy told the cop where he was going & why the cop said show me what you do the guy opened his trunk & pulled out juggling pin’s & proceeded to juggle (mean while another car comes along & stop’s to watch) the cop then leaves the clown go’ The cop goes back to his car & see’s the other guy setting in the back seat of the police car he asked the guy what he was doing the guy said if what he saw was the roadside sobriety test he would not be able to pass.
It appears to me that these guys were not actually Amish based on beer and stereo, ran off and not caught. So would a horse or self driving car be liable?
Zebra don’t exist, they are just horses wearing prison stripes.
It appears that the Amish do drink, though it’s typically on special occasions. The article below appeared in Amish America and shows that activities like the one referenced above do occur. See the discussion about young Amish people and drinking near the end of the article.
I was thinking the stereo might be a major clue.
"Sheriff’s deputies in Trumbull County, Ohio, pulled over the buggy - complete with beer and a large stereo system - around 1 a.m. on Sunday, "