Every shop that works on someone else’s fleet operates on one unwritten rule: keep the joyriding to a minimum. In Toledo, Ohio, that rule reportedly didn’t survive a routine service visit, after a Lucas County Sheriff’s Office SUV dropped off for maintenance allegedly ended up lined up at a stoplight in what looks a lot like an impromptu drag race.
According to the Lucas County Sheriff’s Office, a 22-year-old employee at the shop servicing the marked unit took it out on September 8 and wound up side-by-side with another car at the intersection of Monroe Street and Collingwood Boulevard. Dashcam footage from a passing driver, later released by the sheriff’s office, shows the marked Ford Explorer-based SUV sitting at a red light next to a red muscle car for roughly 30 seconds before both vehicles take off together up Monroe Street.
The SUV’s own markings did most of the identifying work. Visible Sheriff’s Office plates and graphics in the dashcam clip led investigators back to the shop, and the employee has since been charged with a first-degree misdemeanor count of unauthorized use of a vehicle in Toledo Municipal Court. He made his initial appearance Tuesday before Judge James Anderson, who continued the case to September 25. According to the court affidavit, the employee admitted to police what the footage already showed.
The Sheriff’s Office, unsurprisingly, took its own victory lap on social media, comparing the employee’s decision-making to Will Ferrell’s fictional NASCAR driver Ricky Bobby and joking that the stunt earned him “a summons over a trophy.” Whether the mechanic’s pass up Monroe Street was quick enough to actually win the race isn’t something the sheriff’s office claims to know, either.
That misdemeanor charge is lighter than a lot of people would assume for driving off in a law enforcement vehicle. Unauthorized use of a vehicle doesn’t require prosecutors to prove someone intended to permanently keep the car, only that they drove it without permission, a lower bar than an outright theft charge, and one that carries up to 180 days in jail and a $1,000 fine for a first offense in Ohio rather than felony exposure. It’s a notably different outcome than other drag-racing cases Backfire has covered, including a Tennessee street race that turned into nine separate charges once kids in the back seat and a crash entered the picture.
There’s a liability lesson buried in here too for anyone who’s ever dropped a car off for service. Shops typically carry garagekeepers insurance to cover vehicles in their care, custody, and control, but that coverage is written around damage from fire, theft, or a legitimate diagnostic test drive, not an employee deciding a customer’s car, let alone a government fleet vehicle, is his personal drag strip entry. Had the Explorer been damaged mid-race, the shop could have found itself fighting its own insurer over whether the claim was even covered.
Sheriff’s offices in multiple states have leaned harder into street-racing enforcement this year, including a promised crackdown on a notorious Georgia mountain road after a fatal crash. Unauthorized-use cases can also escalate fast once police get involved, as one recent chase that started with a joyride and ended on a train bridge showed. This Toledo case, at least, ended with a court date instead of a pursuit.
It’s unclear whether the driver of the other car in the video faces any charges, and the sheriff’s office hasn’t said who actually won. For the shop employee, the closest thing to a trophy right now is a court date on September 25.
Watch WTOL 11’s clip of the dashcam footage on Instagram.
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