This week on Weird and Wacky Wednesdays: Clothing Optional
One of my colleagues reminded me this week of a file our office once handled where the client was stopped by police while naked. There was a good reason for it, and not the kind you might assume. Nudity in a car is not a crime, and there can be perfectly innocent explanations. Sometimes the reason is simply awkward. Nobody here is condemning it. It just has a way of becoming a feature of the file, usually because it arrived alongside something that actually matters. That was on my mind when I found these three.
Tacoma, Washington
Late on a Wednesday night in June, an off-duty Tacoma police officer driving home watched the car ahead of him use the shoulder of Interstate 5 as if it were a regular lane. He pulled it over and found a driver who, in the words of the Thurston County Sheriff, was quite intoxicated and entirely naked. The driver blew a 0.21 and was arrested for impaired driving. The Sheriff’s Office asked the public to drive sober and clothed.
The nudity is why this made the column. The 0.21 is the part that mattered. That is well over twice the limit, and a person driving at that level is a danger to everyone around them, dressed or not.
Sedgwick County, Colorado
In mid July, witnesses in rural Colorado reported a naked man riding on top of a moving Union Pacific locomotive. According to the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office, Daniel Ray Ballance had broken a window to get inside the locomotive, climbed on top, and blew the horn before deputies arrested him. He now faces felony and misdemeanor charges. Asked to explain himself, he told deputies he loved vodka, beer, and playing the banjo.
There is a small legal point here for the Canadian reader. Our impaired driving law covers the operation of a conveyance, which includes trains, boats, and aircraft, not only cars. Riding on the roof is one problem. Being at the controls in that state would have been another one entirely.
Evansville, Indiana
Around 11:30 on a Friday night, Evansville police found a naked man standing in the middle of an intersection. He could not tell them his name, had dilated pupils, and did not seem to know where he was. He told one officer he was maybe on drugs, and another that he was on shrooms, fish, and shrimp. His car was parked nearby. He was charged with indecent exposure and public intoxication and later released.
The detail that matters is the parked car. He was found on foot, not behind the wheel, which is the only reason this is a light story instead of a serious one.
The Takeaway
The clothing is not the point in any of these, and it is not what I would be worried about if any of them were my file. Impairment takes judgment away in every direction at once, and the missing clothes are just the most obvious sign of it. In Canada, public nudity is its own minor offence under the Criminal Code, but it is a footnote next to the impaired driving that tends to come with it.
The lesson is the ordinary one. If you have been drinking or using, do not drive. A cab costs less than a DUI and does not care what you are wearing. We will see you next Wednesday.
