Road Ends
It looks like Francis Wiley has decided to hang up his keys. The Florida man, currently awaiting sentencing in the Pasco County pokey for his felonious driving habits is swearing he will not drive again. Which is probably a good thing all around. Wiley, as I have posted before, has no arms and one leg.
Even police, who busted Wiley so many times that it's now a felony for him to drive, couldn't stop him.
But now he is at the end of the road: He is scheduled to face a judge Friday for sentencing on a new round of felony traffic and drug possession charges. Prosecutors want to put him in jail for five years, and this time, Wiley says he's turning in the keys for good.
"I'm beat. The white flag is up," said Wiley, 40, from behind thick glass in the Pasco County Jail. "You can only bang your head against the wall so long before it hurts."
Wiley lost his arms and most of his left leg in a 1980 accident when he was 13. He fell off an elevated train platform while fooling around at an abandoned switching station in New York City, and grabbed a live electrical line to break his fall. He touched metal while trying to regain his footing, and roughly 11,000 volts of electricity surged through his arms and legs.
He learned to live without limbs. He taught himself to drive. He starts the car with his toes, shifts with his knee and steers with the stump of his left arm. He turns on the lights with his teeth.
Driving, he says, is one of the few things that lets him feel free and exert his independence.
"I'm an excellent driver," Wiley said. "It is something I can do well by myself. I've been thoroughly tested by the department of motor vehicles and I passed with flying colors."
The "excellent driver" has racked up so many violations that he is facing felony charges and up to five years in prison. His license was taken away from him years ago. His "excellent" driving is probably not improved by the quantity of drugs he takes. His attorney acknowledges that Wiley is unlikely to avoid prison this time. Despite the sob story reporting from the AP.
Criminal Masterminds | Gaius August 1, 2007
