I found this story today. The woman driving had no license on account of a previous DWI.
http://www.al.com/news/press-registe...800.xml&coll=3
Quote:
"Mobile County woman in bicycle crash guilty of DUI
Friday, November 21, 2008
By GARY McELROY
Staff Reporter
On an early August morning this summer, Jeff Conrad was gliding along on his bicycle at 17 mph, he told a Mobile judge Thursday, when his speed suddenly neared 40.
A few seconds later he had a bad case of road rash, his $500 competition racing bike was a total loss and the woman who sent him flying was standing outside her vehicle, cursing him and smelling of alcohol, he said.
During her Thursday trial before Mobile Municipal Judge Shelbonnie Hall, 31-year-old Charity Eiland acknowledged striking Conrad with her car, but denied be ing drunk or cursing the bicyclist.
Hall nonetheless found Eiland guilty of DUI in the Aug. 20 incident — her second DUI conviction — and sentenced the restaurant worker to 12 months in jail. Eiland was taken into custody, but was allowed to post an appeal bond.
According to Conrad and his riding companion, Joshua Payne, it was about 6 a.m. and they were just passing the Heron Lakes Country Club on Government Boulevard when Eiland's SUV pushed Payne and his bike aside and shoved Conrad and his bike ahead of her.
Neither man was seriously injured.
During questioning by city prosecutor Ed Smeltzer, they said that Eiland cursed them for riding their bikes in the roadway, telling them it was against the law. Cyclists are permitted by law to ride on most roadways, including Government Boulevard.
She then handed one of them an insurance card and tried to leave, the bikers tes tified, but they prevented it and shortly afterward police arrived.
Officers testified that they, too, smelled alcohol on her breath. Eiland failed several field sobriety tests, Hall was told, and then refused to take a breath test after she was transported to police headquarters.
She had no drivers license because it had been lifted in the wake of a 2007 DUI, according to testimony.
Defense attorney Jeff Deen questioned Conrad about what kind of safety devices he had on the bike for riding in the dark. Conrad said his bike was lit up from front to back with blinking lights and reflectors.
It may have been Eiland's own testimony that sealed her fate, however.
She said she had gotten off work the night before at a seafood restaurant and gone out drinking with friends at a Saraland bar, where she consumed six beers and a shot of liquor called a "red snapper."
She spent what was left of the night at a friend's home, she said, finishing off the evening with one more beer and getting less than three hours of sleep before heading home. That's when she hit the cyclists.
Eiland said she had nothing to drink "that morning" and "thought I did fine" on the field tests the arresting officer gave her."