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North Carolina v. Dellinger4/2/1985
I
This appeal presents an issue of first impression: whether a horse is a vehicle for the purpose of charging a violation of G.S. 20-138.1? We hold that it is.
G.S. 20-138.1 provides in pertinent part:
A person commits the offense of impaired driving if he drives any vehicle upon any highway, any street, or any public vehicular area within this state . . . hile under the influence of any impairing substance; or . . . fter having consumed sufficient alcohol that he has, at any relevant time after the driving, an alcohol concentration of 0.10 or more. [Emphasis added.]
Defendant argues that a horse cannot be a "vehicle" and that even if it is, defendant was not "driving" it within the meaning of G.S. 20-138.1. We disagree.
"Vehicle" is defined in G.S. 20-4.01(49) as "every device in, upon, or by which any person or property is or may be transported or drawn upon a highway, excepting devices moved by human power." "Driver" is defined in G.S. 20-4.01(7) as the "operator of a vehicle" and "operator" is defined in G.S. 20-4.01(25) as a "person who is in actual control of a vehicle which is in motion or which has the engine running."
We recognize that a distinction may have been made between driving and operating in prior case law and statutes regulating vehicles. However, no such distinction is supportable under G.S. 20-138.1 since a "driver" is defined as an "operator." It is clear that the legislature intended the two words to be synonymous. State v. Coker 312 N.C. 432, 323 S.E.2d 343 (1984).
Defendant's main argument is that a horse is not a "device" and therefore cannot be a "vehicle." While we have found no
North Carolina decisions defining a saddle horse as a vehicle for the purpose of a prosecution under the driving while impaired statute, we find decisions from other jurisdictions persuasive on this point. In Conrad v. Dillinger, 176 Kan. 296, 270 P. 2d 216 (1954), the Kansas Supreme Court held that a saddle horse is a "vehicle" within their statutory definition which is identical to G.S. 20-4.01(49). The Kansas court noted that its legislature expressly made the definition of the word "vehicle" so broad that it included not only automobiles and animal-drawn vehicles, but every device upon or by which any person may be transported, and that this definition is sufficiently broad to cover ridden animals. 270 P. 2d at 218. In addition to defining a horse as a vehicle for the purposes of the traffic laws of the State of Kansas, the court noted that by adoption of G.S. 1949, 8-506, the legislature made all the provisions of Kansas traffic laws applicable to persons riding animals upon a roadway irrespective of whether such animals come under the definition of a vehicle. 270 P. 2d at 218. See also, Broussard v. Annaloro, 268 So. 2d 293 (La. App. 1972); Watson v. Stallings, 270 N.C. 187, 154 S.E.2d 308 (1967).
North Carolina has a similar statute, G.S. 20-171, that states:
Every person riding an animal or driving any animal drawing a vehicle upon a highway shall be subject to the provisions of this Article applicable to the driver of a vehicle, except those provisions which by their nature can have no application. [Emphasis added.]
We are convinced that the North Carolina legislature intended the provisions of the traffic laws of North Carolina applicable to the drivers of "vehicles" to apply t
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