Shortly after an Uber driver careened into a Shell gas station Monday night on Holman Road Northwest, Seattle police officers gave that driver a field sobriety test.
He failed much of it.
According to documents filed in King County Superior Court this week, the pupils of the 59-year old Uber driver "appeared dilated." The driver, who has since been removed from the Uber app, "admitted driving the Xterra" that struck not only the gas station but a Honda moments earlier.
The male driver of the Honda later died. His identity has not yet been released by the King County Medical Examiner’s Office.
Witnesses estimated the Xterra was traveling well above the 30 MPH speed limit before the two crashes.
“It had to be going 90-to-100 miles per hour,” a witness told a KIRO 7 news crew Monday night.
An SPD officer filed a search warrant late Monday seeking permission to draw the Uber driver's blood because of his belief that he was "under the influence of intoxicants and/or drugs."
According to the same warrant application, the driver failed multiple portions of the field sobriety test.
On the walk-and-turn portion, the 59-year old Gig Harbor man was "unable to maintain the starting position." He also "stepped off the line,” and “missed heel-to-toe." The driver “took the wrong number of steps and turned incorrectly.” On a one leg stand test “he was unable to keep his foot lifted for more than a second or two,” according to the warrant court file.
On a Modified Romberg Balance Test, the suspect “estimated 19 seconds as 30 seconds.”
“His pulse rate at 2043 hours was 106 beats per minute, while he was standing still on a sidewalk,” according to the warrant.
On Thursday, SPD Detective Patrick Micheaud told KIRO 7 the driver's inability to perform parts of the field sobriety test may have been caused by injury or some factor other than impairment. Those failures “were not enough probable cause” evidence to arrest him, Micheaud said.
That is why the Uber driver's blood was drawn for toxicology screening. Those results aren’t expected for weeks.
Meanwhile, a witness told a KIRO 7 news crew that responded shortly after the accident Monday the Uber driver was driving dangerously a mile before allegedly causing the deadly crash and fire.
He was “erratic and aggressive,” Ralph Allen told KIRO 7 Reporter Alison Grande on Wednesday. “He was weaving, he was accelerating. I mean, really accelerating. He had to be flooring it.”
KIRO 7 is not naming the former Uber driver, because he hasn’t been arrested or charged with a crime.
He agreed to the voluntary field sobriety tests and denied any drug or alcohol use.