August 25, 2008
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We have on occasion blogged about the wackier side of drunk driving, but for the most part we’ve opted for boozing insanity that didn’t involve automobiles for fear of upsetting those killjoys over at Mother’s Against Drunk Driving. But in this instance we just couldn’t resist.
A French journalist (that this was his profession is the only unsurprising part of this story) was arrested for drunk driving after police spotted him veering along a country road in the wee small hours of the morning. He was with his photographer, who owned the car. Being inebriated didn’t help his reflexes on the road, what compromised them even further was the fact that he lacked sight and we don’t mean insight, or vision for the future, but the actual ability to discern objects and light.
The journalist and the photog had been out tilting them before the blind man made the request. “I really wanted to do it (drive the car),” the blind man told the court. “I expressed this wish. He (the owner of the car) agreed.”
The owner is one of the nicest – or least sane – drunks we’ve read about. He agreed to let the blind man take the wheel, saying that once he did, he saw “a lot of happiness emanating from him.”
The driver later told the judge that he had one hand on the handbrake and the other on the steering wheel and that he was “very concentrated on the road.”
The judge, a sane person, told the car’s owner that his state of intoxication “didn’t make you a very reliable monitor”.
The judge fined the pair of them. Inspiration for the plan appears to have come from the blind journalist’s previous experience getting behind the wheel of a car on a closed circuit. It was not reported whether the sentencing was conditional on the journalist keeping to these sorts of courses and the bumper cars at the carnival.
August 26th, 2008 at 2:00 am
It’s one of those stories that’s just so crazy you know it had to involve 1) booze, 2) someone who lacks judgment 3) the French. Thankfully people like this do exist so we all have something to base our insane actions against and say “Whoa… at least I wasn’t that guy!”
November 2nd, 2008 at 10:53 am
Zoey Castelino
Drunk usually lack of judgement.
It make no difference from which Country they come from .
To summarize , you are an IDIOT.
November 2nd, 2008 at 11:11 am
i let a totally blind friend drive my car once..we were shitfaced…he worked the floor peddles from the drivers seat..i guided the steering wheel with him, and told him either to slow down,brake,left or right..he did fine,no problems whatsoever..we drove in the city of boston,with traffic lights and other vehicles..he loved it !!