Man sentenced for drunk driving in a wheelchair

0 Comments | AFP, June, 2007

OTTAWA (AFP) — A Canadian man who was arrested driving a borrowed motorized wheelchair while drunk has been convicted of impaired driving, officials told AFP Thursday.

Patrick Shanahan, 35, a self-described alcoholic who had already been convicted once of drunk driving a regular vehicle in a separate incident, was on his way home from a pub in a Toronto suburb in December 2004 at about 1:15 am when he was arrested, said Corporal Jodi Dawson of the Peel Regional Police.

"Officers stopped him because he was operating a motorized wheelchair on a road, erratically, and charged him with impaired driving," she said.

Torstar News Service had quoted Shanahan as saying: "I don't need a license to operate it, I don't need insurance and I don't need license plates to...