Technically one could in my state, but there was a case (granted, 20+ yrs ago) where an old timer got it tossed out because despite being drunk af, he wasn’t on the road but off on the shoulder and there were enough witnesses and history to testify the horse consistently took him home without posing a danger to road safety. A lot of factors went in to that win, old timer, small town, everybody knew him, judge didn’t see him as an issue, so I wouldn’t suggest it for everybody in every situation.
That shoulder point seems like a moot point IMO. If I’m drunk in my car, i still can’t drive on the shoulder. It is also common for people on off road vehicles like atvs and snow mobiles to get DUIs. This 100% sounds like a small town grace thing.
I would guess the case could be made that any motorized vehicle doesn’t operate without a human actively making the choices about what the vehicle does, whereas a horse can take direction but will still “operate” even if the rider is blackout drunk. If you’re not on the road and not “operating” the horse, I think you could attempt to argue down to public intoxication or some other nuisance charge, especially if the horse was out of traffic and could be shown to reliably get you home without causing a disturbance. I’ll be interested to see how the courts deal with DUIs when a self-driving car is involved.
In some places you can still get a dui on a horse
Technically one could in my state, but there was a case (granted, 20+ yrs ago) where an old timer got it tossed out because despite being drunk af, he wasn’t on the road but off on the shoulder and there were enough witnesses and history to testify the horse consistently took him home without posing a danger to road safety. A lot of factors went in to that win, old timer, small town, everybody knew him, judge didn’t see him as an issue, so I wouldn’t suggest it for everybody in every situation.
That shoulder point seems like a moot point IMO. If I’m drunk in my car, i still can’t drive on the shoulder. It is also common for people on off road vehicles like atvs and snow mobiles to get DUIs. This 100% sounds like a small town grace thing.
I would guess the case could be made that any motorized vehicle doesn’t operate without a human actively making the choices about what the vehicle does, whereas a horse can take direction but will still “operate” even if the rider is blackout drunk. If you’re not on the road and not “operating” the horse, I think you could attempt to argue down to public intoxication or some other nuisance charge, especially if the horse was out of traffic and could be shown to reliably get you home without causing a disturbance. I’ll be interested to see how the courts deal with DUIs when a self-driving car is involved.