Following a stipulated bench trial, Alexia Whitmore appeals her conviction for DUI less safe,1 impeding traffic,2 and possessing an open container in a vehicle.3 Her sole enumeration of error is that the trial court erred in denying her motion to suppress evidence discovered during an encounter with police. We hold that the evidence supported a finding that this was only a first-tier encounter that required no reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, and that even if this were a second-tier encounter, Whitmore’s act of impeding traffic provided the officer reasonable grounds to conduct a traffic stop. Accordingly, we affirm. The standard of review on a ruling on a motion to suppress is clear.When ruling on a motion to suppress, the trial court sits as the trier of facts, and its findings regarding them are not disturbed on appeal if there is any evidence to support them; the trial court’s decisions with regard to questions of fact and credibility must be accepted unless clearly erroneous, and a reviewing court construes the evidence most favorably to the trial court’s findings.Punctuation omitted. Bryant v. State .4
So construed, the evidence shows that an officer in his patrol car approached an intersection where two vehicles traveling the same direction as the officer were stopped side-by-side at a traffic light that was green. The driver of the vehicle on the right had exited her car and was speaking to the driver of the vehicle on the left who was on a cell phone by leaning in the passenger window. Coming to a stop behind the vehicles, the officer activated only his rear blue lights so as to alert traffic behind him. The officer, believing that perhaps this was an accident, approached the driver leaning in the window and asked what they were doing. Both drivers announced that they were lost and were trying to get directions. The officer indicated that he would assist in giving them directions but asked for safety reasons that they move their vehicles to a parking lot on the right to get out of the middle of the road. The drivers did so, and when the officer approached to speak with the driver from the vehicle that had been on the left, he smelled an odor of alcohol, and she admitted to having consumed some martinis. This driver, who was Whitmore, failed several field sobriety tests and also refused a breath test after being arrested and receiving proper notice.
