The following 1-liner was in the most recent email version of News of the Weird (the article’s not available on the web, AFAIK):
For those of you who aren’t familiar with NOTW, all stories are taken from real news sources (This one apparently appeared in the Houston Chronicle), not ULs. This seems completely ridiculous. Anyone know anything more about this story (the Chronicle’s archives are pay-only)?
I couldn’t find a link to this on the local online news archives, but I did hear it discussed on the KQRS morning show, which everybody knows is the epitome of objective news reporting cough bullshit cough. Anyway, Jeff was on, so that lends it a certain verisimilitude.
The basic upshot was that there was the combination of
a. In the vehicle
b. Drunk
c. Vehicle was running.
Any two of these wouldn’t have been a problem. All three together meant he was seriously in danger of going drunk driving, so they nailed him. He was also a double-digit repeat DUI offender, I think.
Hey, at least he wasn’t talking on his cell phone.
Spent some time on this in Great Debates a couple of weeks ago:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=59198