Call it what you will – Droning Under the Influence (DUI), Droning While Drunk (DWD) or drunk droning – but it is an offence in Japan, and one man has fallen foul of it.

You can always count on human beings to come up with the most innovative ways of breaking the law, but this one must be a first in the drone world.

Who knew there was even a drunk driving law in the world, and that somebody would be arrested for it?

But the lawmakers in Japan must have seen something the rest of their fellow citizens could not; for they amended the country’s Civil Aeronautics Act early this year, to include various offences related to drone technology.

One of them was drunk piloting, and as fate would have it, the new law has found a winner.

The 56-year-old man has become the first in Toyota City, Aichi region in Japan to get busted for violating the newly enacted law against flying a drone while intoxicated.

The incident which landed the man in soup occurred last month, when the suspect is alleged to have helped himself to a potent dose of eight cans of beer from seven in the morning until noon.

Not surprisingly, as with all situations when people drink, they get inspired and ideas start flowing; that morning, the man was suddenly struck by the urge to clean his room.

“While tidying, he happened upon a drone which he had bought a few years ago and took it out of the box to see if it still worked,” said a report from SoraNews24. “Upon learning that it did, the drunken suspect abandoned his cleaning ambitions to take it for a spin.

“However, while in flight, the drone weighing about 540 grams collided with the window of a nearby residence. The neighbour called the police to report the crash and the ensuing investigation led them back to the suspect who admitted to the charges of drinking and droning.”

Given how much we have fallen for the gadget, we honestly cannot fathom a situation where we would have a drone lying anywhere in the house and we totally forgot about it.

Maybe if we had a few stiff ones between early morning and noon…

Perhaps society is all the better for the fact that this man was not behind the controls of a newly acquired drone by the Westmoreland County Sheriff’s Office in Virginia, USA, when it helped deputies nab a sexual assault suspect who was hiding in a field.

Deputies were called on the night of July 17 to a home in the area of Curley Lane and Monroe Bay Circle for a breaking and entering offence involving sexual assault.

When they arrived, the deputies searched the area, with one of the detectives behind the controls of the department’s drone, which was recently acquired through a federal grant.

Shortly after the drone was up in the air, the suspect was found hiding in a nearby soybean field.

John C. Heasley, 44, was then arrested and charged with breaking and entering at night and object sexual penetration.