Cops: Driver Crashed Car While Trying to Avoid 'Octopus'

Not a great defense when you're 3 miles inland
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 6, 2019 10:35 AM CST
Cops: Driver Crashed Car to Avoid Nonexistent Octopus
A curled octopus is seen in Wicklow, Ireland.   (Getty Images/EMFA16)

A UK driver whose vehicle landed upside down in a ditch swerved "to avoid an octopus" on the road—or so police say he claimed. The 49-year-old, who escaped major injury, was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence of drugs on Tuesday after police found no sign of an octopus at the scene near England's southwest coast. Per the BBC, "this particular cephalopod would have had to crawl more than [3 miles] over hills and fields to find itself in the path" of the vehicle. While police stress the dangers of driving while on drugs, Twitter users find humor in the case, with one noting the driver will now face "the long arm of the law," per ITV. Another wondered if the driver "went into a squid." (Wales once faced an octopus invasion.)

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