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Food

Man Crashes Car While Eating Sandwich, Driving with His Knees

Let's get two hands on the wheel, folks.
Photo via Flickr user Ernesto Andrade

OK, how long does it take to eat a sandwich? We’ll estimate somewhere between five and ten minutes, depending on whether it’s a hastily assembled homemade PB&J or a takeout club complete with frilly toothpicks and pickle spears. Either way, it seems like you’d probably have time to eat one before or after you got in your car, especially if it’s such a substantial ‘wich that it might require you to take both hands off the steering wheel.

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Ronald H. Blaser would disagree. On Wednesday, the 75-year-old drove down Schneeberger Road in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, steering with his knees so he could eat his sandwich with both hands. We know this because of the incident report from the Sheriff’s Department that accompanied his single-vehicle car crash.

Surprisingly, Blaser’s kneecaps and vastus medialis muscles weren’t able to keep his vehicle on the road, and he lost control, drove into a ditch and flipped over. According to the Green County Sheriff’s Office, he was wearing a seatbelt, and despite some unspecified injuries, he declined medical attention at the scene. He was cited for inattentive driving and will have to appear in court in the future. (Either the sandwich was unharmed or could be salvaged from the “moderately” damaged vehicle, unlike the innocent burrito that became the “only casualty” of another recent eating-while-driving crash.)

And just last week, a man was arrested in Michigan for stopping his pickup truck in the middle of an intersection to make a sandwich… for his dog. According to MLive, an officer from the state’s Department of Natural Resources was driving through Crawford County when he noticed the vehicle sitting in the middle of the road.

The man attempted to drive away, but conservation officer Ben McAteer pulled him over; the driver subsequently failed both a field sobriety test and a preliminary breath test. When McAteer asked why the man had stopped in the intersection, he admitted that he was making a sandwich for himself and for Lucky, his dog. Although the as-yet-unidentified driver was arrested for DUI, Lucky was allowed to eat the rest of the sandwich and was then turned over to one of the man’s family members.

After crashes, court dates and arrests, it seems like maybe it’s just easier to eat that sandwich before getting in the car.