The legal limit for most of the 50 state in the good old USofA is 0.08% BAC (blood alcohol content). In Germany the legal limit is 0.05%. Imaging the shock of running a breathalyzer test on a handicap man, who was driving his wheelchair down the middle of the road, and getting a result of 0.5%. Yeah, ten times the legal limit!
From Spiegel Online (International News):
When a squad car patrolling the village of Ventschow, in northeastern Germany, spotted a wheelchair-bound man out on the open road late on Saturday night, the police officers suspected he might be under the influence. They were right. When he was given a breathalyzer test, they were stunned to find that he was a whopping ten times over the legal limit for drivers. He had a 0.5 percent blood alcohol content (BAC) -- the legal limit in Germany is 0.05 percent.
"He was right in the middle of the road," a spokesman for the police told Reuters Tuesday. "The officers couldn't believe it when they saw the results of the breath test. That's a life- threatening figure."
The 31-year-old had been out partying with a pal, he confessed when pulled over. In fact he was just a mile from home when he was rumbled.
The concerned coppers tried to get the inebriated man to hospital in an ambulance, but he was not going quietly. After he resisted and put up a fight, they were forced to give him a police escort.
Now the authorities are faced with the tricky task of how to penalize this kind of behavior. Technically the man was traveling as a pedestrian, and so cannot be charged with a driving offence.
When I was in law enforcement, I kept a file of my more unbelievable/unusual cases. This would have been filed right near the front!
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