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Drunk Driving Central PA Style

More Life in the Slow Lane
Not much crime has happened in Central Pennsylvania since my last report on the one-man riot. Last Thursday, however, the local police arrested a man for driving under the influence of alcohol—a man driving a horse and buggy.

Yes, we still have horses and buggies in Central Pennsylvania. We still have hitching posts on Market Street in downtown Lewisburg. The Amish do all their vehicular travel in buggies; in fact, the next town over, Mifflinburg, PA, was once the buggy capital of the US and today has the museum to prove it. When Henry Ford began manufacturing cars in Detroit, he purchased his first bodies from a Milton buggy shop but soon changed to buggy shops nearer to his factory.

Up to the time our Amish and Mennonite neighbors swept into Lewisburg in 1971 to help dig us out of the remains of the 50-year flood brought upon us by hurricane Agnes, there was no record of any Amish or Mennonite arrested in Union County. However, the incident in question did not occur in Lewisburg (our Amish are quite sober people), but in neighboring Milton, PA.

The arresting officer, of course, was astonished to see a horse and buggy being driven recklessly along a Milton road without even the required lighting. When he asked the arrestee if he were Amish, here is what the driver replied according to the Sunbury Daily Item: “Well, sort of. I left and sort of came back. I’m a bad Amish.” I’ll say. His blood alcohol was 0.165, a bit above the legal limit of .08.

The Amish lad had attended a nearby fair and, on the way home, stopped at a local tavern where he inhaled about 12 drafts. When asked why he decided to drive home in such a state, he frankly responded that he thought the police would leave him alone because he was Amish. “They always get away with things,” the arrestee opined. Hmmm. That may tarnish the record I mentioned above.

Anyway, I thought you might be interested to know that crime does occur in the slow lane.

One Response to “Drunk Driving Central PA Style”

  1. MyasCafe_com Says:

    There’s a lesson in this – drink coffee.

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