This Week’s Wacky Wednesday: The Case of Florida Man, the Lawnmower, and the Cop Car
The amount of trouble that Florida Man gets into is impressive. Sometimes the antics are dangerous, sometimes, they are horrible, and sometimes they are a bit funny. This story veers toward the latter, fortunately. In May of 2019, an elderly man was arrested for a DUI after he crashed a lawnmower into a police car. These are definitely not words that get strung together every day.
What Happened, Florida Man?
Gary Wayne Anderson, 68, doesn’t seem to be the type of person that is going to commit a “normal” crime. Of course, since it is Florida, it does mean that all bets are off. Let’s get a look a just what we are dealing with.
First, Gary’s license was suspended. In fact, it had been suspended for decades at the time of this latest incident. He had two prior convictions for driving drunk. He knew that he wasn’t allowed to drive a car or a truck… but perhaps he had found a loophole. Instead of a regular vehicle, he slid behind the wheel of a sweet, sporty riding lawnmower. It did not matter that his blood alcohol concentration was at three times the legal limit.
Florida Man was pretty sure he had beaten the system.
In fact, there was a chance that he could have gotten away with it if that dastardly parked car hadn’t somehow gotten in his way. Oh, it wasn’t just any car. As you may have gleaned from the title, it was a cop car. The police were responding to an entirely different incident at Rodriguez Fashion, and an officer was sitting in his car. It seems strange now that no one had reported the drunk elderly man riding a lawnmower (with trailer attached) through town, but it is Florida.
Anderson clipped the bumper of the vehicle and kept on going. The officer felt the impact and saw the damage to the vehicle. Anderson was quickly arrested and was honest with the cops about being drunk. However, he claims he did not damage their car, which was not true. He also claims that he did not take any cocaine, even though the blood tests show that he did. Anderson told the officers that they must have put the drug in his system, and then he proceeded to use racial slurs toward the officers.
He was arrested and brought to the Polk County Jail where he was held on $3,000 bail. He was charged with a DUI and because this is not his first, it could carry with it quite a sentence.
DUI on a Lawnmower?
That’s right, even though this was not a car or a truck that doesn’t mean that Anderson is going to get away with not getting another DUI. He was still charged with driving under the influence. Even though he might have been on a mower, it could still cause some serious damage, and he could have been the cause of other accidents on the roadway. Fortunately, nothing too serious occurred and he was taken off the road before anything could happen.
Even though there is a lot of humor to be had with stories like these because no one was hurt, DUIs are serious business. People die far too often because of others’ negligence and selfishness behind the wheel. Anderson seems to have a serious problem with alcohol and drugs, as his license had been suspended since 1978. That is more than three decades. Hopefully, he will realize that he needs some help and he will seek out that help.