Waitaki police have expressed concern that they continue to deal with some of the worst cases of drink-driving in the country.
In the most recent incident, police in Weston arrested a 17-year-old local youth for allegedly driving with excess breath-alcohol on Thursday night, after he crashed his vehicle into a tree and road sign about 11.20pm on the corner of Essex and Charles Sts.
Although the youth was uninjured, police said when breathalysed he was found to be eight times over the legal limit.
Senior Sergeant Jason McCoy of Oamaru said the youth had blown 834mcg.
The legal limit for under 20s is zero.
However, Snr Sgt McCoy said while the breath test in this case was "obviously quite high", Waitaki had some of the worst drink-drive statistics in the country and police were unhappy that they routinely saw extremely high levels of excess breath-alcohol.
He said police continued to catch drink drivers in the district who were well above the drink-drive limits of zero mcg for under-20s and 400mcg for over-20s.
"We are concerned with the levels of drink-driving and the levels of excess breath-alcohol people are producing when apprehended."
Excess breath-alcohol levels in drink-drivers in Waitaki were 92mcg higher than the national average, he said.
