Waikato Police say while some drivers are going above and beyond and saving lives by their interventions, the high number of motorists being detected driving under the influence of alcohol is cause for serious concern.
Officer in charge of the Waikato Highway Patrol, Senior Sergeant Steve Ambler, said the actions of two drivers on Sunday were considered life saving interventions.
“In the first incident a member of the public rang Police on Sunday night reporting the concerning behaviour of a man driving on SH1 north of Huntly.
“The offending driver had cut a motorist off and was weaving between lanes. When stopped by Police driving at 118km/h the driver asked who cares about the motorists he’d cut off, suggesting they were ignorant. In the end it was him who was the ignorant one. Despite claiming to only have had two beers the man returned a breath alcohol reading of 921mgs, more than three times over the legal limit.
Mr Ambler said another motorist’s intervention a few hours later also probably saved lives.
“This involved a motorist cutting off another driver on Cobham Dr in Hamilton about 11pm and this driver contacted Police by calling the *555 service.
“The member of the public followed the offending motorist and reported several more close calls with other drivers before the 45-year-old man driving a Mitsubishi Diamante was pulled over. Such was the man’s level of intoxication he was incapable of performing a breath alcohol test when taken back to the station and a doctor was called to access his level of impairment. As such he was charged with driving whilst incapable.”
Mr Ambler said Police had little doubt had it not been for the actions of the other drivers, emergency services would have been dealing with another serious injury crash, if not worse.
“And while these incidents were at the far end of the scale they weren’t the only issues of concern with the number of drivers found driving under the influence of alcohol over the past few days appalling.
“Last weekend our Traffic Alcohol Group dealt with 17 drivers behind the wheel over the 250mg legal limit while Road Policing staff across the Waikato dealt with over 40 drunk drivers over the past week.”
Mr Ambler said such high numbers of intoxicated motorists so soon after Op Stock-take, a Central City operation targeting drunk drivers held at the start of the month that netted 41 impaired drivers, was extremely disappointing.
“Motorists over the holiday period need to realise we’re constantly changing our deployment tactics and the old adage; “expect to encounter us anywhere at any time,” apply even more today than ever before.
“When you consider 15 of the 40 people killed on Waikato roads this year died in crashes where alcohol and drugs are suspected or confirmed as being contributing factors, the bottom line is drunk drivers kill. With traffic flows already increasing across our District, our message to motorists is choose between the bottle or the throttle, you can’t have both.”
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