I totally forgot to post this a few weeks back, but the lesson still holds true today: check all four tires before you decide to drive. From the Highland Park Crime Watch:
On the morning of Wednesday, June 15, at approximately 1:30 a.m., Officers Wade, Barber and Sgt. Byrd were in the 4700 block of Lakeside Drive speaking with a young couple and advising them of the Lakeside Park’s curfew hours when they heard a loud noise coming from south of their location. As the moments passed, the officers reported the noise became progressively louder and soon realized that a vehicle was approaching northbound on Lakeside traveling without a tire; on the rim only.
Officers stepped into the street to initiate a traffic stop of the vehicle. Contact was made with the 16 year old driver who was unaware that he was driving without a tire. He seemed sincere in his inability to recall whether or not he had been in an accident. Officers then asked where he was when he got in the car and he stated that he was with four or five friends at a house near Amherst Avenue and Boedeker Drive, admitted that he had been drinking “rum and coke” with them and was simply trying to get home, which was a few blocks south of that area.
Officers questioned him if he knew his current location, which was on Lakeside Drive, and the juvenile responded that he thought he was on Haynie Avenue. It was at this point that Officers conducted the Standard Field Sobriety Tests (SFST’s). The resulting clues from this test, caused the Officers to arrest the juvenile and charge him with a Minor DUI.
A subsequent investigation revealed he had been operating the vehicle on the rim from Central Expressway to Lakeside Drive by way of Harvard Avenue, St. John’s Drive, and Euclid Avenue.
Officers discovered this was not the first time the juvenile had interaction with the HPDPS, having been issued a Minor in Consumption citation earlier in the year and stopped by police on a separate traffic incident as well.
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