Driver Passes Out at Wheel in Someone Else's Driveway

Police officers have a certain number of careful steps they have to go through to determine, for the record, that they are convinced someone has had too much to drink to be driving.

Sometimes they must feel almost a little silly having to bother.

At 3:20 a.m. Saturday, a 34-year-old Wauwatosa man was arrested for drunken driving, first offense, after a resident of the 2300 block of North 68th Street called police to report a suspicious car parked at the end of his driveway.

Police found the car parked half on the driveway and half on the grass, with the lights on and engine running, and the driver passed out cold at the wheel. It could have been a medical emergency, though. So you have to follow procedures.

An officer knocked on the window, he said, for a minute and a half before the driver opened his eyes. He still could not get the man's attention, though, even by shining a flashlight in his face.

He finally called out repeatedly to the man to open his door. When he finally did, the officer said, he immediately detected "a strong smell of intoxicants."

The man said he did not know why he was parked in someone else’s driveway. He told officers he had been drinking at tavern, 7208 W. State St., and was going home. He wasn't even anywhere close to home, however, although he was headed in the right general direction.

He failed to complete the steps of a sobriety test and then blew a .17 blood alcohol content on a preliminary breath test. Back at the police station, he registered a BAC of greater than .15 on an evidentiary test at the station, putting him in violation of statute 346.63(1)(a) – "Under the influence of an intoxicant... which renders him or her incapable of safely driving" – or in this case, driving at all.