As We See It

A joyride sampler, in honor of Boulder City’s drunken plane bandit

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Paul Weddle took a stolen Cessna for a joyride last week with a blood alcohol content of .132.
Illustration: Lex Cannon

“He landed and took off twice, made two 360-degree turns in the air and nearly hit another airplane.” That’s a line from last week’s Las Vegas Sun report on a joyride in a stolen Cessna by a man named Paul Weddle. His blood alcohol content was .132, and his mug shot is accordingly epic. How does this incident in Boulder City stack up to other notable joyrides?

In 1993, a 16-year-old named Keron Thomas impersonated a subway train operator in NYC and took passengers on an 85-stop whirlwind. No one was hurt, and as far as we know, everybody got to work on time.

Last December, a winter storm turned the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art into a playground for some ATV drivers. The vehicles weren’t stolen, but the stunt is straight out of Rocky.

This past New Year’s Eve, some punks stole some cars and illegally street raced in Belfast, Northern Ireland. One politician called it an “orgy of destruction,” which would’ve been a way better title for The Fast and the Furious.

Back in LA in the 1980s, my 2-year-old neighbor jumped in his battery-powered red Corvette and drove to the nearest gas station. Naked.

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