A suspected drunken driver from the Twin Cities dutifully pulled over his pickup truck when law enforcement stopped him in downtown Little Falls, then he got out from behind the wheel. Within a moment or so, a freight train came along and crushed his vehicle.
Yes, the State Patrol notes, the driver parked his pickup on the tracks and left it for a southbound train to gobble up.
A 29-year-old Ham Lake man has been in jail since that uh-oh moment about 10:40 p.m. Friday near Broadway and 1st Street NW., just west of the Mississippi River in the central Minnesota community.
The vehicle "was on the railroad tracks [and] not in a roadway crossing," said Amy McBeth, a spokeswoman for the railway, BNSF.
The driver, who has a previous drunken-driving conviction on his record, is being held in the Morrison County jail on suspicion of doing the same this time around. A court date has not been set.
Paul Walsh
