Defendant appeals his conviction by the trial court for possession of a controlled substance.1 ORS 475.992. He assigns error to the admission of evidence seized from the glove compartment of his car. We affirm.

Defendant was stopped by a state police officer for failure to dim the headlights of his car. ORS 810.410(3). As the officer approached the car, she noticed a strong odor of alcohol. Defendant was unsteady on his feet when he got out of the car. The officer conducted a driving under the influence of intoxicants (DUII) investigation. Based on defendant’s admissions, physical condition, behavior and performance on the field sobriety tests, the officer determined that defendant was under the influence of both alcohol and a controlled substance.2 She arrested him for DUII pursuant to ORS *488133.310(l)(e). The officer returned to the vehicle to search it for evidence of the crime of DUII.

Defendant objected to the search.3 As the officer opened the car door, she noticed two empty cans of beer behind the driver’s seat. The officer testified that she looked for places ‘ ‘where people would put open containers of alcohol whether beer or alcohol.” When she opened the glove compartment, she detected the odor of methamphetamine.4 The odor appeared to be coming from “a small brown jewelry box.” She opened the box and found a spoon with methamphetamine residue on it.

Before trial, defendant moved to suppress the evidence of the methamphetamine on the basis of an illegal search incident to an arrest. The trial court denied defendant’s motion to suppress. It found all the facts to be essentially as the officer testified and adopted the state’s analysis.5

“A search incident to arrest is not limited to situations where it is necessary to protect an officer’s safety or to prevent the destruction of evidence. The police may also *489search for evidence relevant to the crime for which the defendant is being arrested. However, such a search must be reasonable in time, scope and intensity.” State v. Vaughn, 92 Or App 73, 77, 757 P2d 441, rev den 306 Or 661 (1988). (Emphasis supplied.)

In this case, the officer conducted the search immediately after the arrest for DUII and limited her search to areas in the immediate vicinity of the driver’s seat where she thought it was likely the occupants may have stored evidence of intoxication. She found two empty cans of beer. Looking further for containers of alcohol, she opened the glove compartment and detected the “faint odor” of methamphetamine. Inside the glove compartment, she found a box containing methamphetamine-related drug paraphernalia.

This case is distinguishable from State v. Porter, 312 Or 112, 114, 817 P2d 1306 (1991), where an officer continued to search a car after finding an open container of beer and found four baggies of methamphetamine.6 The officer ran a records check on the car after the driver looked “furtively” away. The owner of the car was wanted on a Nevada fugitive warrant. During the stop, the officer noticed an open can of beer behind the driver’s seat. After the arrest, he confirmed that the can had beer in it. He then searched the car for more open beer cans. The court held that the officer had exceeded the scope of the investigation permitted by ORS 810.410(3),7 *490which was for an open container violation committed in his presence. Once he found evidence relevant to that crime, and because no statute provides that possession of a greater number of open containers is a more serious offense, he had to stop his search. Unlike in this case, the officer in Porter did not contend that he was searching for other evidence of intoxicants beyond open containers, and he testified that the driver did not show any signs of intoxication.

Here, the officer testified that she was investigating a DUII. Because the only beer cans she found were empty, she opened the glove compartment to search for alcohol. Inside the compartment, she found the intoxicant methamphetamine. The officer did not exceed the scope of her investigation. The trial court correctly ruled that the evidence was admissible.

Affirmed.

concurring.

I concur with the majority’s result but not its reasoning. In a search incident to arrest, “[ojrdinarily, the seized articles must be in plain view, or, if not, then within the immediate control of the prisoner and accessible without unreasonable exploring, rummaging or ransacking.” State v. Chinn, 231 Or 259, 268, 373 P2d 392 (1962). The contents of defendant’s glove box were not in plain view. Although the court made no specific finding regarding the “immediate control” prong of the Chinn test, the evidence would support a finding that that prong was satisfied. For that reason, we will presume that the facts were decided in a manner consistent with the court’s ultimate conclusion that the search incident to arrest was reasonable. See State v. Parker, 317 Or 225, 230, 855 P2d 636 (1993); Ball v. Gladden, 250 Or 485, 487, 443 P2d 621 (1968). Applying that rule, I conclude that the trial court implicitly found that the contents of the glove box were within defendant’s immediate control and were accessible without unreasonable exploring, rummaging or ransacking.

*491I do not agree with the majority’s discussion of the scope of the officer’s investigation. 122 Or App at 490. The permissible scope of a search incident to arrest is governed not by what an officer might believe is a reasonable DUII investigation, but by court-made rules defining this limited exception to the warrant requirement. As we said in State v. Kirsch, 69 Or App 418, 422, 688 P2d 446 (1984):

“Under Article I, section 9, a warrantless search is permissible as incident to an arrest when it is for the protection of the officer, the preservation of evidence, or ‘when it is relevant to the crime for which defendant is being arrested and so long as it is reasonable in light of all the facts.’ State v. Caraher, 293 Or 741, 759, 653 P2d 942 (1982) (emphasis supplied); see also State v. O’Neal, 251 Or 163, 444 P2d 951 (1968); State v. Krogness, 238 Or 135, 388 P2d 120 (1963); State v. Chinn, 231 Or 259, 373 P2d 392 (1962).

“A search incident to arrest must be reasonable in scope, time and intensity. State v. Caraher, [supra], 293 Or at 758; State v. Chinn, supra. It may not be an exploratory search but must be closely tied to the crime or crimes for which the police have a right to arrest the person searched. A different rule ‘would open the door to complete temporary confiscation of all an arrested person’s property which was in his immediate possession and control at the time of his arrest for the purpose of minute examination of it in an effort to connect him with another crime. ’ State v. Elkins, 245 Or 279, 287, 422 P2d 250 (1966). Because a search incident to an arrest is a warrantless search, the opportunity to obtain a warrant is an important limitation on the right to continue the search. ‘[W]hen a search reaches a logical stopping point the police must seek a warrant before proceeding further.’ State v. Flores, 68 Or App 617, 634, 685 P2d 999 (1984). (Emphasis supplied.)”

We should not determine the reasonableness of a search incident to arrest by what the officer regards as a reasonable investigation of the crime for which the defendant is arrested.

For related reasons, I do not agree with the majority’s attempt to distinguish State v. Brody, 69 Or App 469, 686 P2d 451 (1984). 122 Or App at 489 n 6. In Brody, the court affirmed the suppression of evidence seized from a glove box during a search incident to a DUII arrest. The majority suggests that this case is not governed by Brody because, here, the officer articulated a reason for searching the glove *492box, and that reason related to her DUII investigation. That is a hollow distinction. The Brody result is attributable more to the procedural posture of the case on appeal than to the absence of an officer’s explanation for searching the defendant’s glove box. See State v. Brody, supra, 69 Or App at 474 (Gillette, P. J., concurring). Nothing in Brody suggests that the court would have reached a different result had the officer provided an explanation of his reason for searching the glove box. A search that exceeds the permissible limits of a lawful search incident to arrest does not acquire validity simply because the officer provides an explanation for the search. Similarly, a reasonable search incident to arrest is not vulnerable to attack because the officer does not articulate a reason for each step of the search.