Today, May 17, a woman in Telford, Tennessee was arrested for hitting a Greene County deputy’s cruiser. The woman, Angela Gillis, age 45, was driving a 2015 Dodge Minivan when she hit the cruiser at about 2:00am on US Highway 11E.
A deputy and his partner were transporting a juvenile inmate for medical attention at the time of the crash. Gillis was trying to make a left turn and did not yield to the deputy traveling the opposite direction. Her minivan struck the cruiser’s left front tire and the side of the car, pushing it off the road and into a field.
The juvenile and one of the deputies were brought to Johnson City Medical Center for medical treatment.
Gillis was charged with DUI and failure to yield. In addition, a passenger in Gillis’s car, Larry Lowe, 57, was charged with DUI by consent.
DUI by consent, sometimes called DUI by proxy, is a Tennessee law that states that an owner or passenger of a vehicle can be held criminally liable for the actions of another person who commits the offenses of DUI, vehicular homicide, or related crimes.
DUI by consent carries the same punishment as any other DUI offense, which in Tennessee includes a minimum of 48 hours in jail and the loss of your driving privileges of one year. The sentiment behind the DUI by consent law is that when someone sits down next to another and allows them without protest to drive in a state of intoxication, the passenger is as guilty as the driver.
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