No Law Against Bicycling While Intoxicated Appeals Court Reverses Conviction Of Drunken Bike Rider

You can’t drive drunk, but you can pedal plastered.

Not that they recommend it, but the state Court of Appeals has ruled there’s no law against riding a bicycle while intoxicated.

In its ruling this week, the court said the Legislature never intended the state’s drunken driving laws to apply to bikes.

“Because bicycles do not have the force and speed of cars, a drunk bicyclist is not capable of causing the tremendous ‘carnage and slaughter’ associated with drunk driving,” wrote appellate Judge Edward Fleisher.

House Minority Leader Marlin Appelwick, D-Seattle, who has helped write the state’s drunken-driving laws, said he was surprised by the ruling but agrees with it.

“I never heard of somebody driving a bicycle drunk on the road - or even suggested as a hypothetical case,” Appelwick said.

Appelwick doesn’t advocate biking while blotto, but doubts it could be done.

“You have to give them some credit for the fact that the wheels are rolling and it’s upright,” he said.

The court ruled in a case in which a Montesano police officer stopped Daniel Wells at 3 a.m. because Wells’ bike was swerving and making wide turns on a back street. A breath test indicated Wells’ blood alcohol level was .13, above the legal limit for driving while intoxicated.