Riding low and lazy, beverage in hand

There’s something appealing about sitting on an ice chest on a hot summer day and having a cold drink close at hand.

And then there’s being able to sit on that ice chest and drive it around.

A new cooler on the market does just that. It’s motorized and has a small access lid that allows the driver to reach in and grab a cold one without having to stop or get up.

The Houston-based manufacturer of the gadgets, Cruzin Cooler, has distributors throughout the country. The only Idaho dealer is Jeanine Griggs, who sells the coolers out of her Coeur d’Alene home.

Brad Peugh, 37, saw one of the coolers, took one ride around the block and was hooked. He bought a yellow one and plans to personalize it with Pittsburgh Steelers stickers.

“My mom thought I was crazy,” said Peugh, who lives in Coeur d’Alene.

Peugh, Griggs’s neighbor, saw the first shipment of six coolers arrive at her home and said his curiosity led him to take a test drive.

“I’ve been using it quite a bit,” he said. He drives it to the store, through his neighborhood and at baseball games. He even drove it in City Park on the Fourth of July.

Aside from using it as a mobile ice chest, Peugh said he sometimes likes to just zoom around for fun and take his daughter for rides. And he attracts a lot of attention when out for a cruise. People walk up to Peugh and ask where he got the contraption. Some give him a thumbs-up as they go by, and city police officers have shown interest in the unusual cooler, he said.

“I think it’s just the culture of America,” said Mike Smith, who saw Peugh riding the cooler on Independence Day. “People just try to jump on anything that will sell, whether it’s healthy or not.”

Smith, who would rather walk or ride a bike, said he thinks the cooler is just another attention-grabber.

“Americans are all about consuming. It doesn’t really matter what it is,” he said.

But Matt Rude, 22, sees his red cooler as an investment. “It’s one of the sweetest things around,” he said.

Like Peugh, Rude drives his cooler to the store, around his neighborhood on Randle Avenue and even just to the mailbox.

“It’s just a fun summertime thing. It beats the heck out of riding a bike or scooter,” Rude said.

But Maria Griffin, who drives from Spokane to spend time at Lake Coeur d’Alene, believes using the motorized cooler would be a hassle. Griffin carries a small, soft cooler for excursions to the lake; loading a motorized cooler and driving it to a destination doesn’t seem practical, she said.

“I wouldn’t buy one,” Griffin said.

The Cruzin Coolers come with 300- or 500-watt electric motors and travel up to 15 mph, depending on the driver’s weight. They hold up to 300 pounds and have room for a 24-pack of canned beverages and up to eight pounds of ice.

The price tag: as much as $535.

The motorized cooler cannot legally be driven on public roads or sidewalks because it doesn’t have the necessary equipment, such as turn signals, that would allow it to be registered as a motor vehicle, according to Wes Somerton, chief deputy of the criminal division in the Coeur d’Alene City Attorney’s Office.

“The Cruzin Cooler can be operated on private property but cannot be legally operated on public property,” Somerton said.

There are many possibilities for an infraction, Somerton said; a person could be cited for not being insured or having no driver’s license, for example. But, he added, “in my experience, unless the person is creating a dangerous situation or that person has ignored a previous warning, most police officers will give the operator a warning.”