A 22-year-old man is in jail on suspicion of drunk driving near San Francisco, California yesterday after he wedged his Ford Mustang onto the pedestrian walkway of the Golden Gate Bridge. Daniel Soto was taken into custody early Tuesday morning by the California Highway Patrol. According to the CHP, Soto managed to drive over a curb, knocked down a barricade pole, went through a security fence and drove onto the westbound pedestrian pathway, where after 400 yards the Mustang ended up wedged between a fence and the guardrail, a first for the famous landmark. Soto was taken to the hospital with minor injuries caused by the airbag, where he was arrested.
Soto might be grateful that he only got as far as he did. Had he made it much further along the bridge, the Mustang would’ve ended up over the open water of the Golden Gate, and it’s a long way down if the outer edges of the famous bridge proved to not be up to the task of dealing with a drunk in a late-model Mustang.
The car was removed off of the bridge later in the morning, when CHP and bridge engineers called in a crane to lift the newly-narrowed ‘Stang over the guardrail. The engineers and CHP will review the security footage, which will not be made public, to see if there is anything they can do to prevent another situation like this from occurring.
But the one player that lost the most in this game? The poor Mustang, which was at first like:
…before it was all like
(Lead Photo: Priya David Clemens)
this caused a large traffic delay on a bad traffic day to begin with ( 1 inch of rain-panic on the roads)
A crane? really? A drunk guy drove it in and the team of experts can figure out how to drive or tow it out?
Sometimes I wonder if the Emergency Response Personnel have an ongoing bet back at HQ to see who can shut down the most lanes of traffic during rush hour.
I’d assume they used the crane in order to minimize damage, both to the car and the structure of the bridge.
Using the crane was probably the easiest way. The idiot drive drive 400 feet down the path before getting stuck. Probably no room for a tow truck. The crane looks pretty small. And I’m sure they didn’t care if the car was damaged any further.