DUI charges

Poor motor skills, the smell of alcohol and red eyes are all signs that someone could be DUI in Los Angeles. But police officers don’t always have to use those clues to know that something is wrong; the situations themselves can make it pretty obvious that the drivers have a problem.

• Ronald Brundige, age 26, of Depauville, New York, was pulling a car behind his vehicle when police stopped him on September 20th. They noticed what Brundige apparently did not—the car he was pulling was on fire. The officers towed Brundige off to jail, charging him with DWI, aggravated unlicensed operation and refusing to take a breath test.

• People who want to avoid DUI charges should try not to do anything that will attract police attention. A 16-year-old teen from Virginia learned that lesson the hard way when he drove into a lake near his home. The teen and a friend had been drinking by the water, but when they decided to leave the young driver put the car into reverse gear by mistake. The vehicle went backwards 25 feet into the lake. The teens made it out safely, but police had to send a rescue team to get the car out of the water the next day. The teen is now facing DUI charges.

A driver convicted of multiple counts of DUI in Los Angeles would not meet the medical requirements for a license to pilot a plane or a helicopter. Yet the Federal Aviation Administration has no such restrictions when it comes to approving a license to pilot a hot air balloon. Could this loophole in the balloon regulations have contributed to the hot air balloon accident in Texas that claimed 16 lives on July 30th?

The Washington Post reported that Alfred G. “Skip” Nichols had at least four DUI convictions in Missouri in the last 26 years: one in 1990, two in 2002 and another in 2010. He also served time in jail for a drug crime.

A report from NBC Nightly News said that multiple convictions for DUI would most likely have prevented Nichols from getting the medical certificate required to get a license to fly solo in an aircraft. But pilots of balloons and gliders don’t have to provide that medical certificate for their pilots’ licenses. The NBC story said that all that is required is for prospective pilots to provide a statement certifying that they have no medical defect that would make them unable to pilot such an aircraft.

Articles Tagged with DUI charges

Three Cautionary Tales: Drivers Make DUIs Obvious

Pilot in Fatal Hot Air Balloon Crash Had Long History of DUI