(Photo credit: Montana Standard) – A haggard, disheveled, and perhaps confused Robbie Knievel appeared in a Montana court room and was charged with felony DUI after causing a four car accident in Butte, Montana, a city that has been tied to the Knievel legacy since his father rose to prominence in the 1970s. While we’re not sure if it was defiance or confusion, Knievel was either unwilling or unable to tell the judge his home address and simply told the judge that it was on his driver’s license. This is far from Robbie Knievel’s first brush with the law when it comes to alcohol and driving as he has had at least two other instances of DUI in his past. In fact, Knievel has gone so far as to brag about it in public. He was quoted by TMZ on a radio show as saying, “I’m a frickin’ drinking, driving daredevil.” Pure genius, right? He admitted on the same show that he has a problem with alcohol, which his father did as well. Famously, Evel Knievel’s cane was a huge Wild Turkey flask. We are not making that up. That’s a fact.

At the end of the day this is a sad story and it is a story that fulfills a sad pattern that Robbie Knievel saw while growing up through his father (when he saw his father). As best we can tell Knievel’s last major jump was in 2011 but previous to that he had done some wildly impressive things. Before he was five years old he was a capable rider, before he was 10 he appeared at Madison Square Garden, when he was barely into his ‘teens he was opening up for his dad and performing short jumps, long wheelies and other tricks. A rift developed between he and his father when Robbie wanted to start making longer jumps and he father wouldn’t allow it. The two split and Robbie went his own way. He jumped the Caesar’s Palace fountains in 1989 as an homage to his dad and remains the only person to have ever done that. By the late 1990s he and he dad were back to having enough of a relationship that Evel was attending Robbie’s jumps. Was that because they had patched things up or because Evel needed something? There’s only one person who knows that and he was in a Montana courtroom this week.

The details of the wreck and subsequent mess that Robbie Knievel finds himself in now can be found at the link below. The sad reality is that Evel Knievel’s son was yet another piece of human carnage from a life that wrought lots of it. Apples and trees and all of that.

Click here for the full story from the Montana Standard