A 63-year-old Pennsylvania woman is facing DUI charges for driving her wheelchair at approximately twice the legal limit for drivers. Middlesex Township police arrested Connie Lebo in the early hours of Wednesday morning after receiving and report about a woman crawling through a yard. When they arrived at the scene they found Ms Lebo and she allegedly told them that she had crashed her wheelchair twice — the second time she flipped it.
She was taken to hospital, where she consented to a blood test and was found to have a blood alcohol content of .16 or higher.
Seriously, I am all for enforcing drinking and driving legislation when it comes to drivers of motor vehicles, but when it comes to wheelchairs and think there needs to be a little room for discretion. It is all about options, able-bodied folks are allowed to walk while intoxicated in spite of the fact that they’re walking might in fact endanger the lives of themselves and/or others. Obviously, someone who is wheelchair-bound normally doesn’t have the ability to walk — piloting their wheelchair is the closest approximation. To ban them from doing that while drunk, effectively bans them from being drunk outside the confines of their own home… it seems a little unfair.
[WTSP]
