Originally Posted by
BHopper88
It actually happened to the UND CFI that killed himself via nosing a Seminole in the ground in SD. If I remember right it was his second DUI and felt his career was over. Was winter, after a night of drinking he turned the car on for heat and hopped in the back to sleep it off. Cop rolled up and got hit with a DUI. The key was that even if he put the keys under the car, in the trunk, or sat in the back seat with car running, the understanding of it according to my cop friends is that a person still had "access" to the car to drive. Only "safe bet" is to toss the keys into the woods with your back turned and eyes closed. Still just call a cab.
I hadn't heard that story, and that's really tragic. I can understand how that could happen, and how he must have felt.
Obviously, it's a bad law that says sleeping in the back of a car while drunk can result in a DUI charge. That seems ridiculous. No disagreement there.
That being said, I think the problem was that he was out for "a night of drinking," this after already having a DUI, and already knowing how potentially devastating that could be for his career. Really good judgement would be to not go out drinking in the first place, or limit yourself to two drinks, or have a DD lined up, or take a cab, or any of 100 things he could have done other than sleep in his car. And I really hate to say this, but ignorance of the law has never been and never will be an excuse for breaking it, nor is disagreeing with the law. I really feel for that guy. I know for every guy caught with a DUI there are 10 (or more) that don't, and there is an element of luck involved. But... for every guy who gets a DUI for sleeping in the back of a running car while drunk, there are probably 50 who get one for legit driving while intoxicated, wouldn't you think? And you can't really ask the airline to try to sort that one out.
But the bottom line is that you have to take responsibility for yourself. You are responsible for knowing the law and acting within it, even if it's silly. You are responsible for using judgement to keep yourself out of situations where you might have to, for example, sleep in the back of your car instead of driving.