If you don’t want the cops to pull you over, be as inconspicuous as possible on the road.
That conventional wisdom was ignored last week by a thirsty Florida man who was surely not astounded to be busted for riding a lawnmower blind drunk in the middle of a highway.
Paul Burke, of Fort McCoy, was arrested August 5 on Highway 316 in Marion County, after being spotted astride the ride-on grass cutter traveling far more slowly than the posted 55mph limit, the Marion County Sheriff’s Office said.
Dashcam and bodycam footage posted to Facebook captured the moment Deputy Richard Jentsch came across the distinctive road user and decided to pulled him over.
“You know you’re in the road, right?” Jentsch asks Burke in the video.
“Was I?” Burke replies.
Jentsch then goes for the jugular: ““How much you have to drink tonight?”
“Eh, a couple,” Burke parrots in time-honored fashion.
“A couple?” Jentsch responds incredulously. “I think it’s a little more than a couple.”
Jentsch later reported that Burke smelt of booze and had slurred speech.
Admitting that he has “no driver’s license at all,” the befuddled Burke then attempts to perform exercises to prove his sobriety, but is forced to stop and concede he’s unable to walk.
“I have had maybe a little too much to drink tonight,” Burke discloses. “Well, can we just give me a ticket and be done with that?”
Not keen on that proposal, Jentsch asks Burke to attempt the sobriety exercise one more time.
“No sir,” Burke responds. “Just take me to jail.”
The lawnmower lush was obligingly arrested on a DUI charge and taken to the Marion County Jail. He was no longer in custody Tuesday, according to jail records.
(Marion County Sheriff’s Office)
Burke’s latest brush with the law was no aberration. He has three previous convictions for DUI, and has had his license suspended or revoked seven times for previous DUIs or refusals to submit to a breath test, officials said.
The Sheriff’s Office warned that such reckless Burkean behavior can ultimately cost lives.
“Driving a lawnmower in the middle of the road where the speed limit is 55 mph is dangerous and illegal … add being drunk into the mix, it can become fatal,” it said on Facebook.