A Georgia father was arrested on DUI charges after he let his 15-year-old daughter drive him and his wife home on May 9 because the two had been drinking.
43-year-old Jason Phipps, his wife and his daughter, whose name has not been reported, were attending a Zac Brown Band concert that night at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Alpharetta, Georgia.
WAGA spoke with a police officer who said both Phipps and his wife chose to have the daughter drive home after the concert ended. She has her learner's permit.
"They struck a vehicle and a bunch of witnesses who'd observed it tried to get them to stop. And from what I was told, the father told the daughter just to keep going," Lt. John Borsey told WAGA.
WSB-TV reports witnesses gave the police the license plate number, so officers were able to pull the SUV over when the family arrived at their house.
So, yes, the 15-year-old had her learner's permit, but the issue in this case is with the "supervisor."
Teen drivers in the state of Georgia are required to have a learner's permit for 12 months and one day and complete at least 40 hours "of behind-the-wheel driving" under the supervision of an adult.
But the Georgia Department of Driver Services website explicitly states the supervisor needs to be "capable of exercising control over the vehicle if necessary."
"You have to be completely sober, and you have to be able to take control of that vehicle at any time," Borsey said.
Police charged Phipps with child endangerment and a DUI. The daughter was also cited for violating her learner's permit and leaving the scene of an accident. There are no reports of the mother also being charged.
This video includes images from State Farm / CC BY 2.0.
