Georgia throws the book at Alabama man on charge of ‘Eating While Driving’

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January 21, 2015

An Alabama man was pulled over and ticketed in Marietta, Georgia — a suburb of Atlanta — last week for eating a McDonald’s cheeseburger while driving.

According the driver, Madison Turner, the cop observed him shortly after he bought a double quarter pounder with cheese from McDonald’s and pulled him over telling him, “You can’t just go down the road eating a hamburger.”

Turner was cited under Cobb County’s distracted driving law, and in the comment section the officer wrote, “eating while driving.”

The law does not specify eating while driving as a reason for a violation, instead using the broad language, “A driver shall exercise due care in operating a motor vehicle on the highways of this state and shall not engage in any actions which shall distract such driver from the safe operation of such vehicle.”

The law leaves much up to the interpretation of police officers.

In an interview with WSB-TV in Atlanta Turner had a sense of humor about the ordeal.

“Maybe I was enjoying the burger too much; I needed to tone it down. I was certainly willing to do so, but I didn’t expect to be fined or punished.”

Alabama’s laws leave no such leeway for interpretation, prohibiting text messaging specifically instead of distractions in general.

One Atlanta-area DUI and traffic lawyer, who is not representing Mr. Turner, was just as surprised by the ticket.

“If this was the law, I’d have to hire more attorneys because everybody does it including me,” said William Head. “I’ve only seen something like this charge when there’s an accident. There was no accident here, so the fact that this man was charged with eating and driving is a first for me.”

“Maybe if you had a giant pizza in both hands and you weren’t holding the wheel, or maybe if you had a watermelon—half watermelon—and you were just diving into it holding it with both hands, maybe that would be something.”

Is this an example of an intense police officer keeping the streets safe, or big government gone too far? Either way, it’s probably a good idea to put the burger down when you’re rolling through Cobb County.