This week on Weird and Wacky Wednesdays: The Drivers Who Delivered Themselves
Most of my impaired driving files begin with a police officer looking for a driver. The officer notices a car weaving, runs a plate, follows a tip, or sets up at a spot where drunk drivers tend to turn up. The work of the case is often the work of finding the person. This week I found three drivers who skipped that part entirely. Instead of trying to avoid the police, each of them drove straight to the police, and in one case straight into the police. If you were designing the least effective possible way to commit an impaired driving offence, it would look a lot like these three stories.
There is a small lesson buried in here for anyone tempted to get behind the wheel after a few drinks, which is that impaired driving tends to remove the very judgment you would need to avoid getting caught. The three people below are the proof.
The Sidewalk to the Crime Scene
Our first story is from Hillsborough County, Florida, and it involves the single worst place to arrive uninvited. At around three in the morning, deputies were working a traffic fatality scene. They had marked patrol cars parked across the road with their lights on. This is the classic wall of flashing red and blue that tells every sober driver to slow down and go around.
Leela Padileti, 29, did not go around. According to the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, he drove his blue Kia Sportage right onto the sidewalk to get past the patrol cars and rolled directly into the active crime scene. He had, in effect, delivered himself to a location containing the highest concentration of on-duty police officers for several kilometres in any direction.
It did not improve from there. He first denied drinking, then admitted he had been out clubbing with a friend. After failing a field sobriety test, he asked the deputies for something I have never seen work. Body camera video shows him saying, “I thought I completed it. Can I try it again?” There is no do over on a sobriety test. He was cuffed and told he was going to jail. When you drive around a police barricade and into a fatality investigation, the audience is not going to give you a second take.
The Fence, the Berm, and the Police Tahoe
Our second story is from Phoenix, Arizona, and this driver managed to find the police even though the police were parked and doing nothing.
Johnny Newell Newberry, 58, was allegedly driving an SUV out of a parking lot when, according to police, he crashed through a perimeter fence, travelled down a berm, and slammed into a marked Phoenix Police Tahoe parked near the fuel pumps. The location was a city facility yard, which is to say a place full of police vehicles. The impact threw an officer from the vehicle. That officer was taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and was later listed in stable condition, which is the only good news in the story.
When officers reached Newberry, they reported finding a firearm and drug paraphernalia in his vehicle. He was booked on charges related to driving under the influence, among others. Consider the geography here. Of all the things to drive through a fence and down a slope to hit, he found the one object on the property most likely to result in an immediate arrest. There is a certain grim efficiency to it. Some people call a tow truck after a crash. He crashed directly into the fleet.
The Car That Cut Off the Wrong Vehicle
Our third story is the Canadian entry, and it is my favourite because it is the most avoidable. At one in the morning on July 2, Calgary Police say a car cut off an unmarked police vehicle and then pulled up to a liquor store. Of every vehicle on the road at that hour, the driver chose to cut off the one containing police officers, and then parked, apparently to buy more alcohol.
The officers followed, conducted a Mandatory Alcohol Screening, and determined the driver was impaired. The result was a 15-month licence suspension, a 30-day vehicle impound, and a $1,200 fine. This is worth pausing on, because Mandatory Alcohol Screening is not a Calgary novelty. Since 2018 it has been the law across Canada, including here in British Columbia. An officer who has lawfully stopped you does not need to suspect you have been drinking before demanding a breath sample. Cutting off an unmarked police car is more than enough to get lawfully stopped. The driver essentially handed the officers the traffic stop, the breath demand, and the whole file, gift wrapped, on the way into the store.
The Takeaway
The thread running through all three is not really bad luck. It is that impairment is very good at convincing a person that the road is empty, that the barricade is optional, and that the unmarked car is just another car. A sober driver slows for a wall of flashing lights, does not aim an SUV through a fence, and does not cut off a vehicle full of police on the way to buy a nightcap. These three did all of those things because the alcohol had already taken the part of the brain that would have stopped them.
In my practice, the police usually have to work to find the impaired driver. I have had cases where my clients made it easy for the police. One drove into the parking lot of a police station and collided with a parked vehicle there, which was of course all on video. Another rear-ended an RCMP car that just happened to be in front of him. These cases are rare, however.
The lesson of this week is that a genuinely impaired driver will often do that work for them, and then ask for a second try. The cheapest defence in any of these cases would have been a taxi. It always is.
That is it for this week. We will see you next Wednesday for more weird and wacky legal stories, and please, leave the driving to someone sober.
