Riverside Man Arrested In Wrong Way DUI: Cops

La Grange IL

04 January, 2021

4:34 PM

Description

RIVERSIDE, IL — A Riverside man was arrested early New Year's Day after police saw him driving the wrong way on Delaplaine Road at Lawton Road, police said Monday. He was charged with DUI. The driver, identified as Edward Cardenas, 61, did not stop at a stop sign and continued in the wrong lane, according to a Riverside police news release. When he pulled over for an officer about 4 a.m., he stopped at the curb on the wrong side of the street, police said. The officer reported Cardenas' breath smelled of alcohol and that his speech was slurred. When the officer asked Cardenas if he had been drinking, the driver said, "I've had a lot of alcohol," adding that he had been out celebrating, police said. He blew a .143 in a breath test and nearly fell over in a field sobriety test, police said. "This is the second time in a few days that a Riverside officer has come across someone driving in the wrong lanes of traffic," Police Chief Tom Weitzel said in the news release. "If anyone thought that maybe this pandemic has somehow reduced impaired driving, they would be wrong." Weitzel also said Cardenas was headed directly toward a Riverside officer's fully marked squad car. Last week, Riverside police responded to a head-on crash that happened after a driver had been crossing into oncoming traffic for miles. The other driver was sent to the hospital for non-life-threatening injuries.