Driver + Sandwich = Passenger DUI
CBSNews.com
August 1, 2006
A Pennsylvania man is fighting a DUI charge with an unusual twist: He was in the passenger seat at the time.
A state trooper says he pulled over a car after it swerved from a turning lane into the travel lane of a highway in Carlisle on Dec. 26. When he approached the vehicle, the trooper says the driver was holding a sandwich in both hands — and the passenger, Derek Randall Pittman, told him he had been steering while his friend took a bite, reports the Patriot-News in Harrisburg.
Police say the driver passed a breath test, but the passenger had a blood-alcohol content nearly three times the legal limit for driving in Pennsylvania.
The passenger is now seeking to have his statement about taking the wheel suppressed.
“We’ve always maintained that the driver never took his hand off the steering wheel and was in control of the car,” Pittman’s lawyer, Justin McShane, told the Patriot-News. “He knew what my client was doing.”
A hearing is scheduled later this month in Cumberland County Court.
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