"Owning a vehicle being driven by a drunk driver"? WTF?

I was just watching ESPN News, and apparently Baltimore Ravens quarterback Steve McNair has been arrested in Tennessee for “owning a vehicle being driven by a drunk driver.” Apparently the driver in question was his brother-in-law.

What the hell?

I never even knew such laws existed. Is someone who loans their car to someone else responsible for anything that person chooses to do with the car?

Never mind.

Just found an article that gives more details:

I guess that’s reasonable, although if the driver in question does not seem drunk, and the owner has no way of knowing exactly how much alcohol he has consumed, it seems a bit unfair to charge the passenger/owner, especially if the driver is not immediately and obviously inebriated.

Well, as long as the OP was answered, could I ask a tangential question?

My daughter is 16 and driving with a learner’s permit. She must have someone in the car who is (I think) 21 or older and a licensed driver. What if she asks me to be her licensed driver, and I agree, but she doesn’t realize I’ve been drinking?

She is pulled over due to a light being burned out. The cop asks for my license, I comply, and he realizes I’ve been drinking. My daughter has a cold, therefore she didn’t smell it on my breath.

I’ve asked this question of a couple different cops. One says I would be cited “for something”. Another said my daughter would be cited, but he didn’t know the exact charge. A third cop asked that I stop pestering him with hypotheticals.

Anyone?

Apparently it is based on this statute:

The offense is known as DUI by consent.

Here is the statute:

And here is the DUI provision:

I’m probably missing something, but I don’t see any requirement in the statutes that the licensed driver be conscious, let alone sober. Perhaps they’d get you for public drunkenness?

Thanks (again)! My daughter and I looked at the statutes online when we first discussed the idea and I assumed something relevant was being missed.

BTW, I love my daughter and would never put myself in this situation if it could be avoided.

I quoted the criminal provision earlier. In some states, there is even broader civil liability imposed on vehicle owners for acts committed by permissive users of their vehicles.

*E.g., *

http://www.legislature.mi.gov/(S(psihf245d2k3dumyeg2tswmx))/mileg.aspx?page=getobject&objectname=mcl-257-401&queryid=17953223&highlight=vehicle%20AND%20owner

Well, it looks (and I again emphasize it looks that way to me) like you’d both be ok, even if on the way to where you were going, you accidentally jabbed yourself with a tranquilizer dart, just as long as you did it in the passenger seat. :smiley:

Thanks for linking to the statute.

I still think that, in cases where the driver is not obviously intoxicated to a casual observer, it’s pretty rough to hold the owner responsible. Sure, if the guy is stumbling all over the place, or if the owner knows that he’s had six beers in the last two hours.

But if, for example, the legal limit is 0.08, and the driver ends up giving a 0.10 reading, i think it’s unreasonable to expect a non-expert without any special equipment to make a precise evaluation about the driver’s BAC.

Does that strike anyone else as being a really weird phrasing? “The person accompianying the driver has to be at least 18, unless, of course, that person is the driver’s spouse, in which case the age requirement is 18. Oh, and if it’s the driver’s parent, in that case, it’s 18 instead”. It reads like a Monty Python sketch.

Yes.

I had the same reaction.

“Nineteen shalt thou not count, neither count thou seventeen, excepting that thou then proceed to eighteen. Twenty is right out.”

Does this mean that if your idiot son gets drunk and steals your car, you can be held liable for any injuries he causes?

Could a prosecutor argue that if the supervising adult was drunk or otherwise incapacitated, the driver with a learner’s permit was not “under the immediate supervision” of the licensed driver?

Not automatically, but you’d have an uphill battle:

(Emphasis added.)

Reed v. Breton, 264 Mich. App. 363; 691 N.W.2d 779; 2004 Mich. App. LEXIS 3150 (2004)

It’ll be presumed that you gave permission unless you prove otherwise. That means you’ve got to produce evidence and convince the jury that you didn’t give permission.

Never mind,

Yes. Very possible. I knew I was missing something.

I agree. Actually it’s a bit more complicated than I originally made out. There are two statutory bases for DUI by consent in TN. But as you’ll see from the following case excerpt (and notice the half-clever attempt at a defense), both support your analysis:

State v. Phillips, 967 S.W.2d 826; 1997 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 47 (1997)

US traffic laws always seem a little vague to me, for some reason. That is to say, not obvious things like speed limits, but all the licensing and “impairment” stuff. In Australia, the fully licensed driver supervising a learner is legally considered to be driving (both people are) as far as alcohol is concerned, and the police can simply stop the car at a random checkpoint and breath test both occupants of the car. If the instructor is over the legal BAC, he or she will be treated as if driving. I’d be interested to know how other countries do this, especially ones that have a US-style “we’re not even sure you need to be conscious, just there” rule.

If you didn’t “give permission” wouldn’t that by definition mean the car was stolen. (If so) what a nice position to be put in - charge your drunken idiot son for stealing a car or be held liable for the damage he caused, when there is littel you could have done about it.