11 thoughts on “DUI in Lancaster County”

  1. That’s pretty funny. To bad the horse didn’t know to stay on his side of the line.

    Here’s a story about a guy in Germany who got picked up on his bike with a DUI. He’s banned from all leg-powered vehicles for 15 years. But apparently, he can ride a horse and supposedly ride in a buggy.

    http://www.thelocal.de/society/20091129-23593.html

  3. I remember a nicer time when your local police would take you home and get you into your bed! “IF” an accident occurred, then he should be held legally accountable IMHO.

  4. Many years ago, there was a news story in the Bay Area where the police arrested a woman for DUI on a horse. She had rented the horse at a stable in the hills above Palo Alto, went riding, stopped at a bar, had a few drinks. Then a few more drinks somewhere else. Then she forgot to return the horse, and riding home on the shoulder of US 101 in San Mateo County. She finally rode the horse to death (probably heart attack). When the California Highway Patrol showed up to investigate and arrest, she was literally kicking a dead horse. Horses are vehicles under the Vehicle Code.

    Interestingly enough, a bow and arrow is a firearm under California Penal Code for the purpose of certain laws. I called up to ask if it was legal to use a bow and arrow in my back yard–and the police explained that a bow and arrow is a firearm for purposes of the urban firearms discharge law.

  5. I have heard and read stories from all over about people getting in trouble with the law for being under the influence, even when they thought they were doing the right thing by not driving a car home from the bar or the party. I once read about a pedestrian in New Jersey who got cited for being drunk in public when he left his car behind in the bar’s parking lot and tried walking back home through his own “dry” township. I also once saw a guy in California getting arrested on an episode of that “Cops” show, just because he was intoxicated and had admitted that he was riding a bicycle before the police had shown up.

    It’s all getting too ridiculous if you ask me. If somebody gets drunk at a bar or whatever, and they are alone at the time too, what is he or she supposed to do to be absolutely sure about staying out of legal trouble? Hire a moving crew to load him or her into an awaiting taxicab?

  6. Still? I wasn’t aware it was EVER against the law. The horse was sober, doesn’t that count?

    You would be amazed how many vehicle code sections have an equivalent law in the 19th century. While reading through criminal codes for frontier Indiana, I was surprised to see laws against racing horses through town, and even one code that limited speed on a horse to seven miles per hour while in town. (I’ve never seen a speedometer on a horse, have you?)

  10. I remember hearing a story about two Amish guys in NE Indiana who were passed-out in their buggy and the horse was trotting along home. A cop got the horse to stop after seeing it blow through a stop sign, but they couldn’t charge either of the guys for operating while intoxicated, since they were both asleep and neither was holding the reins.

  11. These Amish folks sure seem to have spread out a bit from Lancaster County in Pennsylvania. I once saw an Amish horse and buggy at a Royal Farms gas station in Kent County, Delaware. The Amish man was there to buy some kerosene for his lamps, I guess.

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