When you're behind the wheel of a car, there's a massive responsibility on your shoulders to ensure your rolling two-ton death machine hurtling down the street at 70 miles an hour doesn't unnecessarily hurt anyone. For me, a responsible driver means keeping your complete concentration on the road, whatever it takes.
If you break that rule, then in my opinion you should pay the price of the ticket you pick up, but one man is taking his ticket all the way to court, insisting that while he was pulled over for talking on his cellphone, he was actually eating just eating a hash brown from McDonald's.
That's the situation down in Westport, Connecticut, where Jason Stiber was pulled over after visiting a McDonald's drive-thru, and fined $300 for apparently talking on his cellphone, but Stiber says he was just enjoying his breakfast. What's more, he actually has evidence to back up his claim.
Back in April, Stiber says he was pulled over Westport Police Cpl. Wong Won at around 6am, and although he tried to explain that he was only eating, he was given a $300 fine for distracted driving. "I was eating a hash brown and he thought he saw a cellphone near my mouth," Stiber recalled, and although he tried to explain this to the officer, the plea fell on deaf ears.
"I'm going to trial for justice," Stiber said of his ongoing attempts to appeal the decision, and will appear in court on December 7. Hiring a lawyer for $1,000 (which is the amount his insurance premium went up after the distracted driving incident), the Times-Union reports that Stiber's got a compelling case to bring in front of a judge.
"Stiber said he had no reason to put his phone up to his ear because he has Bluetooth, and provided phone records that show he did not make any calls in the hour he received the ticket."
Despite having phone records on hand, Stiber failed to overturn his ticket, and will now look to contest that decision in court next month. Meanwhile, a police spokesperson could not comment on the upcoming trial, but did confirm that Stiber, a Westport resident since the year 2007, was bringing the case to court.
"He was pulled over for talking on his cellphone and given an infraction. I’m sure his claim is different."
Weirdly enough, this isn't the first time the police have had to get involved after a hash brown incident at a McDonald's drive-thru. Back in November of 2017, a man was arrested after driving through a McDonald's branch in Australia four times, and on the second round, ordering 200 hash browns for an eye-watering $230.
Unsurprisingly, the police were called to the scene, where they found the man in the parking lot, waiting for his 200 hash browns. He was arrested and charged with driving under the influence (it turned out, he was wasted on alcohol). Look, guys, if you want to drive distracted, maybe it's best to leave hash browns out of it, okay?