Police have spent years warning about the dangers of texting while driving, but perhaps it’s time they crack down on a new threat: honking trumpet-playing behind the wheel.
Video recorded on a highway in Utah last month shows a man driving with a trumpet held to his mouth. The man has both hands on the trumpet — not the wheel — and appears to be steering with the end of the instrument.
Teens Brynlee and Kira Eggett recorded the video on Interstate-15, a highway in Utah county last month. They say they spotted the driver and his brass instrument on a Monday evening.
“I think it’s pretty dangerous because you can’t be using your hands to drive, and you’re also not looking at the road,” Brynlee, 13, told NBC News.
The video only lasts a few seconds, so it’s unclear how long the man’s bizarre drive-by solo lasted.
The speed limit on most of I-15 in Utah is 130 kilometres an hour — meaning the driver would have been honking away on his trumpet at high speed.
“It’s a very unsafe thing to be doing behind the wheel of a moving vehicle,” Utah Highway Patrol Sgt. Nick Street told local station KSL TV.
Street says playing the trumpet while driving isn’t technically against the law in Utah. However, an officer could pull a driver over if they see unsafe behaviour behind the wheel.
“If they commit one or two moving violations while playing the trumpet with two hands going down the roadway, they would be in violation of the careless driving statute,” Street said.
The trumpet player has not been identified and no arrests have been made.
Although it’s unusual, this is not the first time a trumpet player has tried to jazz up his commute. An Australian man was fined in 2015 after he was caught driving erratically while playing a trumpet behind the wheel.
Street did not provide any tips on what to do if you spot another driver playing the trumpet.
However, there are two obvious options available: you could call police, or you could give them a taste of their own medicine by honking your own horn.
Comments