Drink driving

Only one drink-driver was processed by the rural drive group or traffic alcohol group when the police units operated around Central Otago over the long Easter weekend.

A Queenstown pilot was sentenced to 150 hours' community work and disqualified from driving for one year by Judge John Macdonald in the Queenstown District Court yesterday when he appeared for sentence on one charge of drink-driving causing injury.

A dozen people are to appear in court this week after being processed for drink-driving in Dunedin at the weekend.

The Liquor Licensing Authority (LLA) has suspended a Kurow hotel's trading licence for two days, after police successfully prosecuted the premises for selling alcohol to an intoxicated 19-year-old man who later crashed and died while driving drunk.

High-risk drink-drivers cause almost two-thirds of fatal crashes where alcohol is a contributing factor and new figures on the country's recidivist drivers do "not make pretty reading", a top road policing manager says.

'An extremely drunk driver who crashed with three young children in the car insisted she would be okay to continue driving home, says a man who intervened.

An Oamaru man's need for a nicotine fix could end up costing him a lot more than just the cost of a pack of cigarettes, after he was stopped for drink-driving twice within two hours.

A teenager who was found to have a breath-alcohol level more than double the legal adult limit was allegedly driving a vehicle which rolled at the Cromwell roundabout at the intersection of Barry Ave and Inniscort St about 2.30am on Sunday morning, police said.

An 18-year-old student admitted careless driving when he appeared before Judge Michael Turner in the Queenstown District Court, even though he was a passenger at the time of the incident.

A 50-year-old Wanaka resident was sent to Whangarei to live with his mother by Judge John Clapham in the Queenstown District Court yesterday, after admitting his fourth drink-driving offence.

A drunk Cromwell teenager drove up roads between Queenstown and Wanaka one night at speeds of more than 180kmh and sparked a police chase which only ended when the fleeing vehicle's engine blew up.

Otago Southland coroner David Crerar yesterday reiterated the need for drivers to wear a seatbelt and the dangers of drink driving when he released his formal findings in to the death of Leslie Armitage (23), of Tipperary, Ireland, who died near Poolburn on November 13, 2010.