He's already bred you say?

Does that put him out of the running for a Darwin Award?

i'd have thought the more obvious thinking was why was he sleeping in the boot?

A mobile phone salesman, and he doesn't think of calling someone?

Um sorry but am I missing something here? Why was he sleeping in the boot. Surely he could have slept in the driver or passenger seat?

All late model sedans in North America are required to have a "New Jersey Door Handle" (think Sopranos...) in the trunk to prevent such an incident as this from happening. In my VW Passat, the handle even glows in the dark. Models made for the European market are not required to have one.

even though he shouldnt have been in the car when drunk, its still pretty sad that he died etc.

... in the UK you can still be "drunk in charge" of a car even if it is parked legally and you are asleep on the back seat. You just have to be in possession of the keys.

(The best way around this I've heard is that you and a friend sleep in two cars and swap keys before you go to sleep.)

Perhaps in the boot because if he was found sleeping in the car with the keys in his possession then legally he would be drunk in charge of a motor vehice and banned from driving.

Just speculating here, but he could have been trying to avoid being found drunk, in his car, and in possession of his keys; lest he get done for drink driving.

Not sure if they can do you for that (i.e. without the keys in the ignition) over here, but maybe neither did he ;)

I don't know about you guys over there, but here in the US our "boot" has a manual release lever on the inside which opens the thing. Federal regulations require it on all cars with a seperate "boot" and cabin.

Perhaps he remembered being told, as I do, that you can be done for being drunk in charge of a vehicle if you're sleeping it off even in the back seat...

I may be right in thinking that he slept in the boot because he had the keys with him. If you are drunk and are in the car with the keys you can still be arrested for drink driving as you are technically still in control of the car, therefore I suspect he hid from view in the boot (or trunk for our friends over there).

This who story should have been a bootnote. :)

I think he may have been searching for a bootleg CD in there.

Did they have to reboot the BMWs on board computer to find out the details?

Ok crap jokes, don't put the boot in. (or me in the boot)

He would have chosen the boot in order to avoid the risk of getting bothered by passing police officers - since the act of being inside the car and in possession of the keys may leave you liable to prosecution (don't ask me why - it's just what I've been told)

Plus also you get a better night's sleep without passers by tapping on the window to ask "are you OK?" or (worse still) reporting to the authorities their concerns about "some bloke out cold in the back of a car".

If he was in the passenger compartment he would still be technically in charge of the vehicle. People have been arrested for sleeping off the effects of a tough night in their cars.

By sleeping in the boot he is safe from prosecution, but not safe from the clutches of Mort

What if your drunk and asleep in your bed in your motorhome, is that Drunk In Charge?

"What if your drunk and asleep in your bed in your motorhome, is that Drunk In Charge?"

Yes. Any vehicle with an engine is (for the purposes of law) treated exactly the same regarding being drunk in/on it. You can even be done for being drunk in charge of a lawnmower (no I'm not kidding).

You can - in theory - even be done for being drunk in charge of a child's tricycle as it is self-propelled. Of course the filth wouldn't do you for that - not unless they had to meet this months arrest quota anyway (Google it - you'll find every constabulary in England & Wales has a "bonus" scheme related to arrests).

I think we get the message - how many people are going to inform us about this ridiculous "drunk in charge of a vehicle" law?

Don't you read the previous comments?

Does this mean that a BMW will float boot up if you drop it in the sea?

I believe that being drunk in charge of a bicycle is a fine and not an points-on-yer-licence job.

As a person that has no house and lives full-time in a motor home, I can give an answer to this, at least with respect to US situations.

Yes, you CAN be arrested for being "in charge" of the vehicle; however, in most cases, if the vehicle is parked legally and poses no hazard you will not be challenged by the local plods.

The reason has little to do with legality: if you are in bed in your motor home (or trailer or camper shell) you are generally not *VISIBLE* to the outside world. So long as there is no reason to suspect a drunk driver in the vehicle, there is no reason to investigate.

Even parking in front of a pub ("bar" here in the Colonies) does not place you at a higher risk, so long as all aspects of the parked vehicle are legal. (I.e., don't extend a 1 meter wide and 7 meter long slide-out into traffic...) I personally have parked like this several times, although the "safest" place to park is in a parking lot, usually at the local Wal*Mart or behind the pub, and walk or take a taxi to and from the pub.

In the U.S. this is actually becoming somewhat common: many of the alcohol distributors have a "party bus" motor home that is sent from pub to pub to entice customers with their various concoctions. It is usually "manned" by 3 or 4 "party babes", who live in the vehicle for a month of tour or so, and who typically sleep it off after the night's work parked in front of the pub in question. I've often talked to them about the parking situation, and the usual response is that they clear it with the plods ahead of time, and no one asks any questions afterward.

Besides, when you're "in charge" of a vehicle that costs the same as a Rolls Royce*, you typically *know enough* to not operate it while impaired!

* - the median price of a motor home is around US$250,000. The "party bus" versions are usually closer to US$500,000...less than a jet, more than a Cessna.

Current and previous generation 3 series have folding rear seats that you can unlatch from the boot, so he either forgot that, or he had an old model.

Yes, I am ashamed that I thought of that.

"I think we get the message - how many people are going to inform us about this ridiculous "drunk in charge of a vehicle" law? Don't you read the previous comments?"

The comments are moderated, and there is a variable length of time between submitting and publication - sometimes a few minutes, sometimes hours. No doubt these people were writing whilst the other comments were being moderated.

I used to work for Lotus engineering in little old norfolk and we did only have to insert handles on the inside of boots for the american market.... as well as a few other america only modifications.. such as

stickers on the tyre puncture repair to say not to drink it and warnings not to get into the boot in the first place

obviously this story proves that there are stupid people in the UK too... its just a smaller market of stupid people!

Just FYI, on the current saloon 3-series (E90/92), folding rear seats is a chargable option...

Standard on the estate/touring/wagon (E91) versions but not on the saloons.

Fair point about the laws involved in being in a vehicle while being drunk. But there is the law and then there is common sense. I know many people who regularly sleep in the back of their cars after a night out and have never run into problems. At worst a cop will ask them whats going on and they'll explain they're sleeping it off. Regardless of what people think, the majority of cops aren't actually going out to vicitimise everyone and carry the law out to the exact letter, some have common sense.

Feel sorry for the guy but :

Is this one car death that the Police and authorities will have difficulty blaming on speed as being the cause.

Yes, officer, i'll get my coat.

THe rules in the US is as long as you are not in the cab of the motor home. Passengers can drink..

In most states in the US you can sleep it off in the car provided you can prove you had no intent on driving the car. This is archived by not being in the driver seat and not being in direct possession of the keys. SO the keys needs to been in the trunk or out side of the car.

The defence in the UK used to be (may still be) "that on the balance of probabilities, you can show you had no intent to move the vehicle" there is a very good reason I know this. I went to sleep in my car in a car park, drunk, having left a message on the answerphone pleading for my girlfriend to come and get me. I knew about "D-in-C" but thought it only applied to public roads (which it used to) but it became public places.

So I remember being astonished when I was woken up and breathalysed. I went in person, pleaded guilty, and went for mitigation. During the deliberations the (contact) prosecuting Barrister leaned back and advised me to change my plea to not guilty because of that defence. When it eventually went to retrial, it was accepted. Of course if the car were in the middle of nowhere there would be the important question of how did it get there. FWIW

It sounds like BMW have done a cracking job of making the boot watertight.

The defence in the UK used to be (may still be) "that on the balance of probabilities, you can show you had no intent to move the vehicle" there is a very good reason I know this. I went to sleep in my car in a car park, drunk, having left a message on the answerphone pleading for my girlfriend to come and get me. I knew about "D-in-C" but thought it only applied to public roads (which it used to) but it became public places.

So I remember being astonished when I was woken up and breathalysed. I went in person, pleaded guilty, and went for mitigation. During the deliberations the (contact) prosecuting Barrister leaned back and advised me to change my plea to not guilty because of that defence. When it eventually went to retrial, it was accepted. Of course if the car were in the middle of nowhere there would be the important question of how did it get there. FWIW

Yup, cars over there have handles in the boot. Yup, the handles do glow in the dark and, yup, they do work.

Tried it out on a mental rental Hyundai by locking myself in the boot, obviously with mate outside with keys..

On the matter of not wanting to be caught drunk in charge of a vehicle, one way to do it is to sleep in the passenger seat: in my experience the police have been quite happy with that arrangement. To be on the safe side, I've always thrown the keys onto the back seat to be doubly sure.

From a friend

1) lock your keys in the boot, so there can be no accusation that you "just tossed them on the back seat when you saw me coming".

2) don't sleep in the driver's seat

3) make sure you aren't going to be committing a parking offence by the time you wake up.

>>> "Of course the filth wouldn't do you for that - not unless they had to meet this months arrest quota anyway (Google it - you'll find every constabulary in England & Wales has a "bonus" scheme related to arrests)."

Must be true then.

but i think, had the police asked any questions, i could easily have proved i couldn't have been trying to drive the car anywhere - not inside a sleeping bag anyway!