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The Scottish Daily Record is reporting that a man was arrested for drunk driving while operating a toy Barbie car.

Paul Hutton, a 40-year-old resident of Clacton-on-Sea in Essex, was tearing down the road in a child’s motorized Barbie car. He was going the vehicle’s top speed of 4 miles per hour when police stopped him along the road at night.

Police administered a Breathalyzer test and booked Hutton for driving under the influence of alcohol. His blood-alcohol content was double the legal limit.

For his offense, Hutton was banned from driving a real car for three years. After the hearing where he learned of his fate, Hutton admitted that he was “a complete twit” for earning himself the driving ban.

“I was very surprised to get done for drink-driving,” he continued. “It is designed for three-to five-year-olds.”

Hutton had found the little pink electric car ten years previous, and had begun to customize it with his son only a few months ago, adding larger wheels to it. Still, he was candid that it was not the ideal vehicle for a full-sized adult.

“You have to be a contortionist to get in and then you can’t get out,” he said of the pint-sized pink ride. He had to drive it with his knees under his chin, and it moved more slowly than a mobility scooter, according to the article.

According to Hutton, he’d been drinking as he worked on the vehicle, and had not realized how much he’d had to drink.

“When it was done,” he said, “I couldn’t resist the temptation to take it out. I wanted to show my friend.”

Hutton had actually ignored a warning from the police. They told him not to drive the vehicle, but he went against their advice and drove it away from the scene, very slowly.

“I knew it was daft, but I didn’t realize it was a criminal thing to do,” he said.

His three year ban from driving was brought down because he had previously been convicted of DUI. Chairman of the bench in the case said “I’ve never seen the like of it in 15 years on the bench.

 You should expect to pay more in large metro areas than in small towns in rural areas. You should expect to pay more for a second offense than a first. You should expect to pay more for a felony DUI than for a misdemeanor. With that in mind, you will find a wide range of fees.

Typically, the top DUI lawyers charge more than new lawyers, or lawyers with lesser skills or reputations. However, there are some good DUI attorneys charging less than some terrible ones. For this reason, price alone should not be your main criteria when selecting an attorney to represent you. As a general rule, when it comes to legal representation, you should not expect anything for free.

A DUI lawyer in private practice will probably not agree to take your case pro bono (for free), even if you have a good case, and even if you shouldn’t have been charged with the offense in the first place. The best way to get a feel for attorneys’ fees in your area is to call around and get several quotes. When the economy is good, many lawyers try to charge as much as possible for each client. When the economy is poor, there are often “bottom-feeder” lawyers who charge insanely low prices for defending DUI cases (say less than $2,000.00 for the whole case) with the idea of getting a high volume of business and driving better lawyers out of business. These “bargain” lawyers typically take on way too many cases to be effective in any of them and often times leave their clients wondering whether they would have been better off with a public defender.

If you want an excellent DUI lawyer (and you should), expect to pay for it. Expect to pay between $4,000.00 and $10,000.00 or more depending on the location, the facts and complexity of the case, your criminal history and other factors. High quality DUI lawyers charge substantial amounts of money to put their expertise and skills to work for you. They often times don’t make any more money than the “bargain” or “bottom-feeder” lawyers, because excellent DUI lawyers are excellent because they view their profession as a calling and accept far fewer cases so they can do the best possible job for each and every client.

Money isn’t always the only determining factor of whether you will be able to hire the best DUI lawyer in your area. The truly excellent DUI lawyers get plenty of referrals and don’t have to beg or bargain for cases. Some will assess you to see if your expectations are realistic and if you personality will be a pleasant one for them to work with. (As an aside, “bargain” lawyers don’t care about their clients’ personalities because typically they plead them guilty at the first possibile opportunity and therefore don’t have to spend much time with them anyways.) Top DUI lawyers spend a LOT of time with their clients and earn their fees.

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MARCH 31–In a law enforcement first, Ohio cops this month arrested a man for drunk driving on a motorized bar stool. That’s right, a motorized bar stool, which can be seen below in a police evidence photo. According to cops, Kile Wygle, 28, crashed his bar stool near his Newark home earlier this month and called 911 due to his injuries. When an officer arrived and asked Wygle what happened, he answered, “I wrecked my bar stool.” According to a Newark Police Division report, a copy of which you’ll find here, Wygle’s homemade ride is powered by a Briggs & Stratton lawnmower engine. Wygle noted that the bar stool could hit nearly 40 miles per hour, but that he was only going 20 when he wiped out late in the afternoon on March 4 (a witness told police that he spotted someone driving a “strange motorized machine” before the crash). A plastered Wygle, who failed a series of field sobriety tests, was charged with DUI and driving with a suspended license, both misdemeanors. His bar stool was not impounded

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2009/0331091stool1.html?link=rssfeed