The first story is that of a Florida woman who was driven by a lusty urge to visit her imprisoned with a man who happened to be an inmate at the local jail.

The Associated Press reports that the woman was allegedly under the influence of alcohol when she drove to the Flagler County Jail in Bunnell, Florida. When she arrived, she demanded to see a particular inmate. Her specific request? A conjugal visit.

According to the sheriff’s office, the woman did have an appointment to visit the jail. She was late, however, so she was turned away from the appointment. She drove off and returned not long after. The guards at the jail called the police, because they suspected that she was driving under the influence of alcohol.

Police found her sitting in her car, and she failed a field sobriety test. When police later tested her blood, they determined that her blood alcohol content was 0.256 percent. The legal limit for driving is 0.08 percent.

The woman had little chance of success in having her request filled as conjugal visits are not allowed at the jail.

In Pittsburgh, another story that seems improbable was reported by WTAE. A Pennsylvania firefighter was accused of stealing a casino security truck, driving it while intoxicated, and attempting to run over a woman with it.

William White was found by Rivers Casino security guards urinating in the casino’s parking garage. They stopped him, and he was too drunk to provide his name, according to the guards. Then White stole their security truck and drove off.

Later, White was seen by police driving on the wrong side of the road, observing that he almost hit a patrol car.

When the police attempted to arrest White, he fled on foot, then spit in an officer’s face.

White’s attorney expressed regret on his behalf, and apologized. White has been in a rehab program for alcohol addiction, and is on unpaid suspension from the fire department.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is reporting that chaperons on the field trip called 911 when they noticed that Dunlap, their bus driver, was acting strangely.

A Pittsburgh Police report describes the situation in which the chaperon called police during the trip. The chaperon had become nervous when the bus driver narrowly missed running into a pole, then laughed off the situation. The chaperon also noticed that the driver had bloodshot eyes and slurred speech, the police said.

The aide finally decided to call the police when Dunlap ran a red light. At that point, an aide called the police, who arrived on the scene and observed the behavior noted, including bloodshot eyes, slurred speech and “swaying back and forth.”

Dunlap underwent a field sobriety test and was taken to a police station, where an expert in drug recognition determined that he was not under the influence of alcohol but likely another drug. Police decided that he was unfit to drive a vehicle, and he was taken to the hospital and then to the Allegheny County jail in Pennsylvania.

Parents were notified to pick up their kids.

In addition to the charges of driving under the influence, Dunlap faces fifteen counts of endangering the welfare of children and two counts of recklessly endangering another person.

Pittsburgh Cares, a non-profit organization that promotes volunteerism and community service, had hired the driver via SD Transit to take fifteen local high school students on a field trip to volunteer and then visit a nearby science center.

A spokesperson for the Pittsburgh Public Schools reported that the field trip was not associated with the public school district. Spokeswoman Ebony Pugh went on to say that the school district does have some dealings with SD Transit, the bus supplier in question, but that Brian Dunlap was not on a list of driver that were authorized to drive for the schools.

SD Transit had no comment on the situation, the Post-Gazette is reporting.

On Dec. 1 of last year, state troopers found Marguerite Engle passed out in the driver’s seat of a stolen van on the side of a highway.

Engle, 45, was found to have a shocking .708 blood-alcohol content percentage, about 25 percent higher than the highest BAC recorded in South Dakota history, according to a reportin the New York Daily News.

“The BAC is almost incomprehensible,” said Meade County State’s Attorney Jesse Sondreal. She said the previous record high for BAC in the state was .56. Drivers found with a BAC over .08 percent can be charged with a DUI in every state.

Somehow, Engle managed to survive with a BAC level that would have been fatal in most instances.

If a person drinks to the point where his or her BAC is .20, just over half of the legal limit for driving, the person could hurt could themselves and not feel any pain. Walking would also be a difficult task.

But if the person continues to drink to the point of reaching a .25 percent BAC, he or she is at a high risk from choking on vomit. Beyond that level lays a legitimate possibility of death by alcohol poisoning.

At a .35 percent BAC, it is as if the same person was given anesthesia for surgery. And if a person can actually reach .40 percent BAC, they are likely to become comatose. That level involves a high risk of respiratory arrest, which can lead to death.

Despite being hospitalized after she was found behind the van’s steering wheel, Engel was found again, less than a week later, asleep behind the wheel of another stolen on a different highway, according to the Daily News.

She was found on a highway near the hospital in Sturgis, South Dakota where she was treated after her record-setting night the previous week. The vehicle was in a ditch beside the road this time, according to the Daily News, and authorities are waiting on another blood test taken.

While Engel was released on bail for her first DUI charge, she missed a court date between her two charges. Once back in court later in December, a judge ordered her to be held in jail without any bail.

She was later charged with two counts of driving under the influence and could also face charges for grand theft auto, according to the Daily News.

Engel’s extreme drunkenness still doesn’t surpass the reigning champion of intense alcohol consumption, and driving. And being found asleep at the wheel.

That distinction still remains in the hands of then 42-year-old Terri Comer who was found unconscious in early 2008 behind the wheel of a running car stuck in a snow bank in rural Oregon.

Comer’s BAC at the time was .72. She was still alive when deputies found her.

According to law enforcement, at least 82 blood tests since January 2009 have registered higher blood-alcohol contents than they should have. These flawed tests were exposed as a result of internal investigations of the blood tests at the Metro Crime Lab.

As a result of these findings, more than one thousand drug tests from past cases are being retested. The new results will be sent to the county’s district attorney’s office and the Department of Revenue.

These offices will study the impact of the errors on any pertinent criminal cases and driver’s license revocation cases.

“We understand how regrettable this and we’re owning up to our own error,” said police spokesman Dave Whitlock. “We’re still getting our arms around the totality of it.”

The lab discovered the errors through its built-in checks and balances and quality assurance measures. According to Whitlock, officials do not believe that all of the tests that came out of the lab are in error.

Police are investigating whether the mistakes were a result of procedure or of human error. Changes have already been made to ensure that the tests will be more accurate in the future.

There is also an investigation underway by the Colorado Bureau of Investigations, the state’s main law enforcement agency, according to the AP.

The AP also attempted to question the district attorney’s office about how past defendants are being notified about the potential for errors in DUI cases. The office was unavailable for comment, however.

A representative of area defense attorneys raised her doubts about the process. Sandy Mullins, executive director of the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar, told the AP, “It puts a lot of things into question. We take a lot of these tests as fact, when in fact these are being administered by people and systems. Just like any system, they can be faulty.” Where often it’s assumed that a machine-rendered test is undeniable fact, Mullins said, “this proves that tests do lie sometimes.”

This is the motto of one Georgia funeral home – a family business that has been running Operation Stop and Think for the past 10 years.

According to a CNN report, McGuire, Jennings and Miller Funeral Home in Rome, Ga. has been offering a contract to anyone who wants to sign it up until noon on New Year’s Eve.

What exactly is this contract? It’s a contract stating that the undersigned definitely plans to drink or use drugs and then drive a car on New Year’s Eve.

If someone does sign the contract, McGuire, Jennings and Miller will cover the costs of everything related to their funeral when they are killed from DUI – including a casket, burial plot and even flowers.

Barry Miller, one of the funeral home’s owners, said the program started 10 years ago when he lost a family member to a drunk driver.

In the 10 years the program has been running, not one person has come in to sign the contract.

Miller said he never expects anyone to actually sign it, but they use it as more of a tool with some shock value, in hopes of saving a life.

The horse was spotted pulling the buggy at a slow walking pace in the middle of the road on Sunday night.

Police discovered a 22-year-old man asleep in the driver’s seat of the buggy. According to the Associated Press report, officers recorded the man’s breathalyzer test at 0.18 – the legal limit for blood alcohol content in Pa. is 0.08.

The first accident involved a 22-year-old woman who was driving her Volkswagen Beetle on Midway Boulevard, a road that travels directly toward the coast of the island.

The woman drove her Beetle straight through an intersection without stopping and “careened down an embankment and ended up in the tidelands,” according to a report from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Luckily for the negligent driver, it was low tide at the time so she did not end up submerged and in possible danger for her life.

On her way into the tidelands, the Beetle crashed through a concrete bench. The bench was part of a memorial to volunteer firefighters. The car also damaged what city officials called a “lift station breather vent.”

According to Oak Harbor Police Chief Rick Wallace, the woman was arrested on suspicion of DUI. A tow truck was able to pull the car from the tidelands. The city will seek restitution for the damaged bench.

The Post-Intelligencer reported the second similar accident that occurred on the same day happened just after midnight on Sunday; a 20-year-old woman drove her car into a two-story apartment building.

“It appeared to be very minor damage,” said Chief Wallace. He did mention that it’s possible there was unseen structural damage to the property.

The driver of the car is a resident in the building that she ran into. She was arrested on suspicion of DUI and underage drinking.

Fortunately, nobody was injured in either of the incidents. When DUI is involved, the results can be far more tragic than those of this odd day of accidents in Oak Harbor.

When the news of DUI accidents is so often more severe than several strange veers off of the road, it can be nice to read about a bad situation that didn’t end up far worse.

Poor decisions have a tendency to lead to more poor decisions, and sometimes the results can be pretty weird.

The variety of odd cases is remarkable, from a motorized recliner and a self-propelled barstool to a man charged with DUI while wearing a breathalyzer costume – and another who claimed to be his own country.

A recent story out of Tennessee is the latest entry into the log of strange DUI arrests and incidents.

According to the Johnson City Press, Veletta Cuba Newman from Elizabethton, Tenn., suffered an embarrassing case of mistaken identity after passing out in her car at a Sonic Drive-In.

Moments before, a passerby noticed Newman slumped behind the wheel of her car in a market parking lot. The witness watched as Newman awoke and proceeded to start her engine and drive erratically out of the parking lot, and then the witness called police.

By that time, Newman had parked her car in a spot at the Sonic Drive-In, where she presumably expected a food order to arrive at her window.

When Elizabethton Police Officer Sarah Ellison arrived at the scene, she knocked on the window of Newman’s car. Newman was again slumped behind the wheel.

Newman woke up and attempted to hand Officer Ellison a twenty dollar bill, mistakenly thinking that the cop was a car hop and attempting to pay for an order. Ellison explained that she was not a Sonic employee, but Newman persisted, continuing to hold out the money to the officer.

The story did not end well for Newman, who was arrested for DUI. Officer Ellison searched the car and found drug paraphernalia, including, according to the report, “a used syringe, a spoon with white powdery residue and numerous bottles of prescription medicine.”

Newman recently appeared in Sessions Court following the incident, under charges of a second offense of driving under the influence and one count of possession of drug paraphernalia. A hearing for Newman was set for April 6.

The DUI charge was Niemczyk’s tenth such charge since 1991.

Niemczyk was arrested following an Oct. 21 incident at a local business, where a store employee reported to police that Niemczyk was acting belligerently while attempting to return merchandise to the store.

Police arrived on the scene, and told Niemczyk not to drive out of the business’ parking lot, determining after some investigation that his license had been revoked.

Niemczyk chose to disobey this directive, which proved to be a bad decision.

Police officers saw Niemczyk drive past them at a nearby intersection, a mere fifteen minutes after leaving the store. Driving a 1994 Ford Econoline van, he was arrested not only for driving with a revoked license, but he was also later charged with driving under the influence of alcohol.

A DuPage County Grand Jury recently indicted Niemczyk for aggravated driving while under the influence of alcohol.
Because it was his tenth DUI arrest since March of 1991, the charge was upgraded to a Class X felony, which can mean six to thirty years in a state penitentiary, and/or a fine of up to $25,000.

The local police department and the DuPage County State’s Attorney’s Office have, according to The Courier-News, “charged Niemczyk with a Class 1 Felony for aggravated driving under the influence of alcohol, a Class 4 Felony for aggravated driving with a revoked license, a Class A Misdemeanor for driving under the Influence of Alcohol and a Class A Misdemeanor for Driving Under the Influence of Alcohol with a blood alcohol content of .08 or more.”

Niemczyk is being held on $100,000 bail at the DuPage County Jail in Wheaton, Illinois, after an October 22 bail bond hearing.

The Courier-News report did not mention what merchandise he was attempting to return, or whether the attempt was ultimately successful.

Some are tragic, changing the lives of those involved, while others, like a recent story out of Minnesota, simply boggle the mind.

In the town of Proctor, Minn., a man was stopped for driving drunk after he collided with a parked car, according to the Duluth News Tribune.

The suspect was returning home from the Keyboard Lounge, a bar where he had consumed eight to nine beers.
Unlike many involved in accidents while driving automobiles, Dennis LeRoy Anderson’s vehicle of choice was a supercharged La-Z-Boy reclining armchair.

Nobody was injured in the accident.

Anderson pleaded guilty to DWI in the incident. His blood alcohol content was measured at 0.29 percent. He has a prior DWI conviction on his record. He received a sentence of 180 days in the St. Louis County Jail or at the Northeast Regional Corrections Center, and must pay a $2,000 fine.

As a part of his probation, according to the News Tribune, “Anderson must submit to a chemical dependency assessment, follow all recommendations, abstain from alcohol and  not-prescribed drugs, be subject to random testing and undergo 30 days of electronic monitoring.”

The recliner was customized to travel with a lawn mower engine controlled by a small steering wheel, a stereo, cup holders, and even headlights.  To complete the décor, Anderson placed a National Hot Rod Racing Association sticker on the recliner’s headrest.

The chair can reach speeds up to twenty miles per hour, with some help, presumably, from the included nitrous booster.

Anderson’s La-Z-Boy was seized following the incident, as is common. It is now up for auction. The story itself has gained international coverage.

The Proctor Deputy Police Chief, Troy Foucault, was unprepared for the attention. According to the News Tribune, Foucault said, “Our secretary wasn’t too happy. She said, ‘What have you created?’ I said, ‘I talked to the News Tribune, and all of a sudden it’s a whirlwind.’ ’’

According to Minnesota law, it is a crime to operate a self-propelled motor vehicle while impaired by alcohol or drugs. Clearly the interpretation of this law extends to even the most unusual vehicles.

Anderson stated that his trip home in the La-Z-Boy was proceeding as he’d planned it until, “a woman jumped on it and knocked the chair off course.” It was at that point that he struck the parked car. Standers-by probably could have told the wannabe passenger that it was only a one-seater.