Illinois woman, giving zero f*cks, drove around with a 15-foot tree on her car

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The Roselle Police Department in Illinois seems to be having fun with its new Facebook page, detailing the department's more bizarre traffic stop incidents.

Last January, a Roselle officer pulled over a 54-year-old woman for driving with what is perhaps the strangest — and largest — ornament known to man on the hood of her car: a 15-foot tree smashed into the grille of her 2004 black Lincoln.

A good Samaritan saw the woman driving and called police. When officers caught up with the woman (locating her car probably's wasn't all that hard), she told them she had been driving for a few miles and "didn't remember where" she hit the tree. She identified herself as Maryann Christy of Schaumburg, a village in northeastern Illinois.

A few weeks ago, a Roselle police officer saw a car driving southbound on Roselle Road with a 15-foot tree embedded in...

Posted by Roselle Police Department on Friday, March 4, 2016

The officer wrote in the police report that he could smell alcohol coming from the woman (despite the fresh pine scent of that tree). He performed a field sobriety test, which the woman promptly failed. She is due in court this April.

http://mashable.com/2016/03/07/woman-drives-with-tree-in-car/?utm_cid=mash-com-sav-desc-link#k6qfrSx1HSqx


Sheesh. You have to be REALLY wasted to pull that off. I like, however, that he could smell the alcohol despite the "fresh pine scent of that tree".

[KamaAina]

1. Isn't it a little early to be shopping for Christmas trees?

[AngryAmish]

2. Some say we use the word hero too much...

[scscholar]

3. Is there a specific law against this?

Seems strange that they decided to get so bent out of shape about this. A better version of the story:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/tree-dui-illinois-grille_us_56de8d97e4b0000de405b4a7?avan61or=

[JVS]

4. Probably

I know that it's illegal to drive with heaps of snow on your car. A quick google search of unsecured loads turns up this, which is for Ohio but Illinois probably has similar laws.

4513.31 Securing loads on vehicles.
(A) No vehicle shall be driven or moved on any highway unless the vehicle is so constructed, loaded, or covered as to prevent any of its load from dropping, sifting, leaking, or otherwise escaping therefrom, except that sand or other substance may be dropped for the purpose of securing traction, or water or other substance may be sprinkled on a roadway in cleaning or maintaining the roadway.

(B) Except for a farm vehicle used to transport agricultural produce or agricultural production materials or a rubbish vehicle in the process of acquiring its load, no vehicle loaded with garbage, swill, cans, bottles, waste paper, ashes, refuse, trash, rubbish, waste, wire, paper, cartons, boxes, glass, solid waste, or any other material of an unsanitary nature that is susceptible to blowing or bouncing from a moving vehicle shall be driven or moved on any highway unless the load is covered with a sufficient cover to prevent the load or any part of the load from spilling onto the highway.

http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/4513

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

5. A law against drunk driving? Yeah, I think there is.

The tree was just comic relief. Plus, it gives the car a nice pine scent.