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Title: DUI charge is filed, but man never left bar stool
Source:
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URL Source: http://www.dispatch.com/live/conten ... -31-09_A1_D1DDFUN.html?sid=101
Published: Mar 31, 2009
Author: By Randy Ludlow
Post Date: 2009-03-31 20:49:14 by DeaconBenjamin
Keywords: None
Views: 325
Comments: 11
Police say Kile Wygle crashed this motorized bar stool while under the influence of alcohol. Gerrit Konink was sitting in his living room around dinnertime earlier this month when he heard somebody down the street fire up what he thought was a lawnmower. He figured one of his neighbors was getting a jump on his yard work. Instead, it was someone jumping on a motorized bar stool. From his window, the 66-year-old Konink then saw something buzz down Kelley Lane in Newark. "I knew it was something strange, and then it was gone," he said. "It was too fast." Newark police say that Konink saw a neighbor riding a motorized bar stool shortly before the man wrecked while trying to make a U-turn. Police say that Kile Wygle, 28, had one too many before wheeling his homemade oddity around the neighborhood on March 4. Wygle was charged with driving the bar stool while under the influence of alcohol and driving while under suspension. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges and asked for a jury trial. No court date has been set. According to a report by Officer Michael Trotter, Wygle told him that his bar stool can reach a speed of 38 mph but that he was traveling only about 20 mph when he wrecked. At Licking Memorial Hospital, where Wygle was treated for minor injuries, he chuckled about his bar stool. Wygle told Trotter that he'd had about 15 beers before the wreck. The man refused to take a blood-alcohol test. When Trotter informed Wygle that he was investigating a traffic crash, Wygle reportedly replied that he wasn't driving a vehicle -- he was driving a bar stool. The man's ride consisted of a bar stool with a padded seat welded to a frame that also contained a 5-horsepower motorcycle engine that operated a chain drive attached to a rear wheel. A lawnmower steering wheel turned the front wheels. Wygle could not be reached for comment and his attorney, Andrew Sanderson of Newark, did not return telephone calls. Newark police did not announce the unusual arrest until yesterday. Bar-stool racing appears to be popular in Wisconsin and some other parts of the country, and motorized bar stools are available for purchase online. State law prohibits the operation of any kind of motorized vehicle, excluding wheelchairs and mobility scooters, while under the influence of alcohol or drugs, according to the State Highway Patrol.
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#2. To: DeaconBenjamin (#0)
It's more draconian than that. Under the new OVI (operating a vehicle while intoxicated) law, it's operating a VEHICLE while intoxicated. The law does not proscribe any specific blood alcohol level to be convicted and "vehicle" can be anything from a car to a bicycle. Laws like this are why the founder of MADD left the group she founded and now works for the alcohol industry.
wow. i didn't know that.
In 1994, Lightner drew fire from MADD for lobbying on behalf of the American Beverage Institute, a trade group of restaurant and hotel executives. She took sides against her former allies over states wanting to pass laws lowering the blood alcohol level at which a driver is considered legally drunk from .10 to .08. Lowering the limit would not get the most dangerous drivers off the road, Lightner argued. Drivers with blood alcohol levels above .10, she asserted, cause more than 80 percent of drunk driving deaths. "The man who killed my daughter kept on driving drunk," Lightner told Katherine Griffin of Health magazine. "He has since been arrested several more times. In each case his blood alcohol content has been .20 or above. A small segment of our drinking/driving population causes the majority of the fatalities. So why aren't we going after them?"
ah, yes, now i remember her name. thanks. btw, my youngest sister was killed by a drunk driver in 1978. she had just turned 20 the month before. he got a slap on the wrist. i wonder if there were others before her and after her. mind you, i'm still not for draconian laws, but there must be adequate punishment.
I remember you telling me about her some time ago. Was sorry to hear about that. These damned laws here about smoking and drinking took me out of a lot of the economy. I used to like to hang out at a jazz and cigar club downtown. Well, you can't smoke under anything with a roof now, so that place went out of business. And since every high school wrestling team reject with a badge has an OVI quota that he's all too eager to meet, you can't even have a beer with dinner now without risking an encounter that would cost $10,000 in fines and lawyer fees. So I stay at home mostly now. Fuck the voters in Ohio. They never deserved the contribution I USED to make to the economy.
Same here.
There are no replies to Comment # 11. End Trace Mode for Comment # 11.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/LatestState law prohibits the operation of any kind of motorized vehicle, excluding wheelchairs and mobility scooters, while under the influence of alcohol or drugs, according to the State Highway Patrol.
#4. To: orangedog (#2)
Laws like this are why the founder of MADD left the group she founded and now works for the alcohol industry.
#8. To: christine (#4)
#9. To: orangedog (#8)
#10. To: christine (#9)
#11. To: orangedog. all (#10)
They never deserved the contribution I USED to make to the economy.
Replies to Comment # 11.