Weaving Driver Was Drunk--He Was Also Blind

A patrolman who expected to find a drunk driver when he pulled over the weaving Thunderbird instead saw dark glasses on the face of the motorist, who turned out to be blind.

“I didn’t believe him at first,” Patrolman R. L. Farney said. “I asked him why was driving if he was blind. He told me the girl he was driving with was drunker than he was.”

Farney spotted the car as it weaved across three lanes of Canal Drive about 3 a.m. Tuesday. “It almost ran me off the road,” the officer said.

When he stopped the car, the driver, Mark A. Daniels, 24, told Farney that he has been blind since he was 12. He said the woman with him, Kelly Pelton, 20, had been directing him as they drove home from a Virginia Beach tavern. He was charged with drunk driving and she faced warrants for drunkenness and allowing an unlicensed person to drive.