Police stop blind and drunk driver

  • 2007-08-08
  • Joel Alas and wire reports
TALLINN - It's often said that some inebriated people are "blind drunk." In the case of one Estonian drunk-driver, the saying could be applied quite literally.
Police in Tartu stopped a vehicle for an alcohol check, only to discover the driver was both blind and drunk, and being directed by a drunk but sighted teenage passenger.
Police said they stopped the vehicle, an Audi 80, because they were concerned about its erratic driving as it made its way down Voru Street in the central Estonian town in the early hours of August 5.
When they asked the driver, a 20-year old man, to blow into the alcoholmeter, he told police he could not see the breath-testing device.

"It turned out the driver was blind… He was drunk and he had no license," a police spokeswoman said.
The blind man had only managed to steer the vehicle for several hundred meters because he was directed by a 16-year old boy in the passenger seat.
The teenager 's the owner of the car 's told police he had asked his blind friend to take the wheel because he had no license and was unable to drive.
Police said both the man and the teenager would be prosecuted for misdemeanor offenses, with a maximum penalty of 18,000 kroons.

In another traffic-related incident, Tallinn mayor Edgar Savisaar was fined 3,900 kroons (250 euros) and banned from driving for three months for speeding.
Savisaar, leader of the Center Party, was stopped by police on July 10 for driving his Nissan sedan at 75 km/h through a 30 km/h zone on the Viitna-Koljaku road in Rakvere County.
The colorful politician said his actions were a "simple oversight."
"I was on holiday and was driving my Nissan from Rakvere to Vosu. I haven't had any trouble with the traffic police for years and have been thinking 's what caused this violation of mine? It must have been oversight. Passing a 70 km/h sign I reduced speed, but failed to notice a 30 km/h sign that came soon afterwards," Savisaar wrote in his online blog.

The mayor said that one of the officers got out of a patrol car and signaled for him to stop.
"I thought they needed some kind of help, nothing else. I only learned from the policemen that I had passed the 30 km/h sign and was shown that I had been driving at 75 km/h. I didn't have anything to say or to protest. I am at fault and the act has no justification," Savisaar wrote.
Savisaar pointed out that several other famous people, including politicians, had been caught speeding, but none had been stripped of their license.

"It seems that it wasn't quite 'equal treatment' in my case. It appears that I am more equal than others and this makes me glad. More is asked from me than from others and rightly so," he said.
"Now the police have finally straightened their backs and found a suitable driver to apply zero tolerance to. I would like to recognize the police one more time for having fearlessly set [the benchmark] higher than [they do for] Reform Party politicians," he wrote.