Report: Texas man charged with DUI after scooter crash

Police in Texas charged a 30-year-old man with driving while intoxicated after he crashed a scooter outside a restaurant on Halloween, the Austin American-Statesman reported Thursday.

It wasn’t Travis Walker’s first DUI, either, according to the report. The paper says he has two prior convictions – presumably with vehicles other than the gas-powered Viza Viper he was scooting around on until the crash Wednesday evening.

Walker was going to try to make his getaway, bloody elbows and all, when restaurant staff called the cops, the Statesman says, citing the police affidavit. Walker was offered a taxi ride and – new mistake – refused.

“As he was leaving, Walker fell off the scooter and almost crashed into a taxicab,” the report says. “Police performed field sobriety tests on Walker, who told officers he thought it was 3:32 a.m. when it was 8:13 p.m., and was laughing.”

Alas, this is not a first in any way.

That distinction could belong to Nicholas Kauffroath, 28, who in September became the first scooter jockey to sustain a DUI conviction in Los Angeles, USA Today reported. He was allegedly three times over the legal limit when he crashed a Bird scooter into a 64-year-old pedestrian, the Associated Press reported. On Sept. 28, he pleaded no contest to hit-and-run and operating a motorized scooter while under the influence of alcohol and received a $550 fine, plus probation. He also had to pay restitution.