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Man riding electric scooter arrested for OWI

On Behalf of | Jan 12, 2019 | Criminal Defense |

A young man who was in Indianapolis will face charges of OWI after being arrested by a local police officer. The officer who arrested him said that the man ran a red a light and forced the police officer to slam on his brakes hard in order to avoid an accident.

The interesting thing about this case is that the young man was riding on an electric scooter, manufactured by Lime, at the time of his arrest. This marks the first time since the popular electric scooters came to the area last fall that police have accused a rider of OWI, that is, operating a vehicle while intoxicated.

Law enforcement officers who were asked said that, in Indiana, a person can be arrested for OWI while riding on a scooter since, under the law, a scooter is a vehicle that one can drive while he or she is intoxicated. To this extent, the officers are correct; in Indiana, one can face criminal drunk driving charges for driving just about any sort of vehicle and being drunk.

However, this does not mean that a person is without a defense. As in the case of anyone who faces a drunk driving charge, the person has every right to contest whether the police had the right to stop him in the first place.

Even if the police did have the right to make a stop, the state will still have to show that the police took all proper steps in their drunk driving investigation, and that the ultimate result of their investigation is reliable. No matter what vehicle one was driving when accused of an OWI, he or she may want legal help in mounting an effective defense.

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