WATERVILLE — Let it be a lesson to new and seasoned drivers: It is against the law, if you are impaired, to accompany a person in a vehicle who is driving on a learner’s permit.
Daniel Murray, 33, of Mount Vernon, and a 15-year-old driving with him on a learner’s permit learned that lesson the hard way.
Both were summoned early Tuesday in Waterville after an officer stopped the 2014 Toyota Corolla the boy was driving. The officer suspected Murray had been drinking alcohol and summoned him on a charge of accompanying a motor vehicle permittee while impaired. The boy was summoned on a charge of driving without a license.
“Basically, you have got to be sober if you’re going to accompany a permittee,” Waterville Deputy police Chief Bill Bonney said Wednesday. “And if you’re not, you can get charged and the permittee can get charged for operating without a license.”
Bonney said Murray and the boy, who also is from Mount Vernon, are scheduled to appear at 8:30 a.m. Oct. 8 in Waterville District Court to answer to the charges. Both charges are Class E misdemeanors, generally punishable by up to six months in jail.
Bonney said that just after midnight Tuesday, Waterville police Officer Cody Vigue saw a vehicle with no tail lights leaving Mainely Brews on Main Street downtown.
Vigue stopped the car on Silver Street and saw that the 15-year-old was driving and suspected the passenger was intoxicated from drinking alcohol, according to Bonney. Vigue asked the adult, Murray, to get out of the car and conducted a field sobriety test, determining Murray was impaired, Bonney said. He took him to the police station for an intoxilyzer test and summoned and charged him. Vigue also charged the boy, whom Bonney did not name because he is a juvenile.
“The 15-year-old, in order to have a licensed operator accompany him, that licensed operator has to fit all the requirements as if they were driving the car,” Bonney said.
He said the licensed driver must be alert and help coach the permittee.
“If that person is intoxicated, obviously he’s not alert,” Bonney said. “That’s why the law exists and that’s for everybody’s safety.”
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