A 32-year-old Ferndale man parked on Urbancrest Drive near Rochester Road drew police attention shortly before 11:30 p.m. by honking his horn repeatedly, and what officers found when they approached his 2020 Ford Escape allegedly ended with one of the highest blood-alcohol readings reported in a recent Troy arrest — a preliminary breath test result of .375%, more than four times Michigan’s legal driving limit.
According to the Oakland Press, the man asked to speak with officers and stepped out of the vehicle after they arrived. The Troy Police Department says he showed signs of intoxication and performed poorly on sobriety evaluations before submitting to the preliminary breath test that produced the .375% reading, well above the state’s standard .08% legal limit for drivers.
Michigan’s legal threshold isn’t the only bar officers had in mind that night. Under the state’s Motor Vehicle Code, any driver with a blood-alcohol concentration of 0.17% or higher qualifies for so-called “Super Drunk” enhanced penalties — a category that can carry up to 180 days in jail, fines as high as $700, mandatory alcohol treatment, and a one-year license suspension, per the Michigan Legislature. At .375%, the Troy driver’s alleged reading came in well over double that enhanced threshold.
Why Officers Sent Him to the Hospital Instead of Jail
Rather than booking the man directly, police transported him to Corewell Health Beaumont Troy Hospital due to his level of intoxication, according to the Troy Police Department. That decision lines up with medical guidance on acute alcohol poisoning: the Cleveland Clinic notes that a blood-alcohol concentration between 0.30% and 0.40% puts a person at high risk for loss of consciousness, respiratory depression, and life-threatening toxicity — a range that squarely includes the .375% figure attributed to the driver…