Commercial Driver Arrested Near Faribault, BAC Nearly 6x Limit

A Commercial driver was pulled over for not maintaining his lane and was subsequently tested for driving while impaired on I-35 near Faribault on Monday, September 20th. The driver, failed all of the field sobriety tests and was taken into custody where he later blew a .23 according to the Faribault Police Department's The Point After, which is nearly 6 times the legal limit for commercial drivers.

According to The Point After, a weekly online publication from the Faribault Police Department, officers were notified by a 9-1-1 caller who was complaining about a vehicle on I-35 that was "weaving back and forth and its speed was fluctuating". Upon finding the vehicle, Faribault Police Officer Matt Shuda "observe[d] it crossing the lanes" of traffic. Shuda then stopped the vehicle and met with the driver 53-year-old Ihar Rudzinski.

Rudzinski denied having been drinking and blamed his erratic driving on him being "tired" and that the "wind" was causing him to leave his lane of travel. The driver, Rudzinski, agreed to take field sobriety tests in which The Point After stated all of the tests that were given "indicated he was intoxicated."

Rudzinski, at the jail, then provided law enforcement with a breath sample which gave a result of .23 BAC. The Point After stated that "because Rudzinski was driving a commercial vehicle at the time, he was subject to a .04 BAC limit rather than .08 BAC."

Rudzinski has been charged with 2nd degree DWI and DWI in a Commercial Vehicle.