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Pregnant girl, 14, accused of drink driving - again
By Mike Barrington
9:57 AM Monday Feb 2, 2009
The 14-year-old girl, who is four months pregnant, was allegedly nearly six times over the limit when police pulled her over because she was driving erratically.
A 14-year-old pregnant girl has for the second time been nabbed for allegedly being over the breath- alcohol limit while driving.
And she was briefly on the run from police and Child Youth and Family officials after fleeing from custody on Saturday night.
The Whangarei girl, who is four months' pregnant, was allegedly nearly six times over the limit when police pulled her over because she was driving erratically in Kamo Rd last week.
After she gave a false name and had trouble spelling it she was taken to the Whangarei police station, where she recorded a breath alcohol level of 828mcg.
The legal limit for drivers under 20 is 150mcg and driving licences are not issued to people under 15.
Police said they again found the girl behind the wheel of a car in Kamo Rd at 9.15pm on Saturday and this time she allegedly recorded a breath alcohol level of 766mcg - more than five times the legal limit for young drivers.
She had been referred to the police Youth Aid section last week and on Saturday she was placed in Child Youth and Family custody.
Whangarei police Acting Sergeant Mike Greenwood said CYF officials left Whangarei at 11.30pm on Saturday to take the girl to a Ministry of Social Development home in Auckland.
"When they got to Portland, she said she was feeling sick. When they stopped the car she opened the door and took off."
The CYF officials had been unable to find the girl in the dark and she was reported as a runaway at 11.45pm.
Whangarei-Kaipara police area commander Inspector Paul Dimery said the girl had been found when she turned up at her home early yesterday.
He said police would be working with CYF to make sure she and her baby were safe.
Mr Dimery declined to comment further on the girl as her "shocking" case was "part of an issue that's bigger than the individual and not unique to Northland".
There was a huge problem with alcohol nationally and it was very obvious to police that since the legal drinking age had been lowered to 18 more teenagers were drinking, he said.
Mr Dimery said the increase in teenage drinking was contributing hugely to violence, criminal behaviour and road deaths.
Our drink-driving shame
ByDavid Fisher
5:00 AM Sunday May 27, 2007
The road toll continues to rise. Photo / Bradley Ambrose
New Zealand's highest ever drink-drive level was recorded yesterday when a female motorist measured almost five times the legal limit, in a police blitz that targeted more than 80,000 drivers.
A staggering 304 people out of 40,000 motorists tested yesterday were charged with drink-driving offences - including the 27-year-old Auckland woman who had to be stopped by another motorist along Tamaki Dr.
"She was driving so badly that a member of the public took it upon himself to stop her," police reported last night. "She did stop without incident and by the time police arrived she was slumped over her steering wheel fast asleep."
The woman recorded a breath-alcohol level of 1943mg - almost five times the legal limit of 400mg. Police said it is likely the woman's drink driving would have killed her, had the motorist not intervened.
The weekend blitz follows a terrible start to the year's road toll, which is sitting at 156; 13 more than were killed at the same time last year. This year alone, 43 deaths (27.6 per cent) have been alcohol related and statistics show the number of prosecutions for drink-driving increased from 29,052 in 2005 to 31,266 in 2006. Everywhere in New Zealand, except for the central North Island and Tasman districts, showed increases.
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Police plan to breath test thousands more around the country today, after appalling examples of drink driving were discovered on Friday night and yesterday.
They included:
* A driver pulled over in Napier with six passengers - including five children - who was almost three times the legal limit. The man was driving an SUV that crashed into a roundabout, puncturing a tyre, and continued driving on rims for almost a kilometre when he crashed again. He fled the scene of the accident and when caught returned a breath-alcohol level of 1120mg.
* Southern region police pulled over a drunk husband and wife travelling along State Highway 1 with their three children, all aged under 5. The husband, who was driving with twice the legal limit (882mg), had earlier refused a ride home from a sober driver.
* In Hamilton, a male driver approaching a checkpoint drove his car straight across a roundabout instead of around it. He then recorded an 1158mg breath-alcohol test - and was unable to stand properly when police got him out of his car.
* Waikato police pulled over a 14-year-old driving drunk from Te Kuiti to Hamilton. The boy was pulled over at 3.35am, giving a reading of 695mg.
National road policing manager Superintendent Dave Cliff was with police yesterday morning as they pulled motorists over. He said he was appalled at the "pathetic stupidity" of those who continued to drive drunk.
Of the Tamaki Dr motorist, Cliff said: "It's difficult to work out how someone is capable of drinking that much alcohol to get to that level. At those sorts of limits you're almost paralytic. How she could drive in the first place is astonishing."
The motorist who felt compelled to force the drunk driver to a stop would be one of those who, Cliff said, felt "enough was enough and realised the consequences of doing nothing".
"There are a group of people who seem to have missed the messages - they don't make the link between drink driving and death."
Cliff said: "We anticipated the results would be bad - and they were. All the indicators are going the wrong way at the moment."
He said there seemed to be a sentiment that New Zealand's drink-drive problem had been controlled and was no longer a danger. "There's still a good number of people who are happy to drink drive."
Police had studied devices, he said, which would stop a car from starting if the driver had been drinking. On a local level, most regions had databases of repeat drink drivers who were targeted by local police.
Other instances from the Friday night-Saturday morning blitz were:
* A recidivist drink driver in North Canterbury returned the region's highest level. He had nine previous convictions for the offence and recorded a reading of 847mg.
* A Christchurch youth attempted to escape a breath test on his moped by trying to evade police on a race through a cemetery; "an irony that did not escape the notice of police staff".
* Wellington drivers returned the highest number of drink drivers although the highest reading was comparatively low at 533mg with many breath readings in the 400mg range.
* A male driver attempted to escape police in his car. He was arrested after a short pursuit and charged with failing to stop, dangerous driving and drunk driving. He recorded 846mg.
* A Holden Commodore 5.7 litre V8 did a U-turn before a checkpoint at Matatoki SH26 near Thames and raced away from police at high speed. He was not pursued by police - but was found 10 minutes later after he crashed into a paddock. The driver, 31, was seriously injured in the crash and his blood alcohol level will be taken from a blood sample.
* Another motorist who attempted to escape a checkpoint in Hamilton drove across traffic islands, damaging his car. He was caught and charged with multiple offences.
* Police in the Southern region arrested a driver who tried to escape by turning off his lights in a rural area. When stopped he recorded a breath alcohol level of 856mg - and had five previous drink-driving convictions.
* A teenager was killed when a car ploughed into her at high speed after she wandered on to the road on SH 1, 4km north of Blenheim. Police say the 17-year-old girl had been drinking when she walked into the path of an oncoming vehicle at 1.15am yesterday near Grovetown. One resident, who did not want to be named, said there was a young man in the car with the girl, who had pulled over. The pair were having an argument. "She probably got out of the car because of that and didn't look and got hit."
Ambulance staff rushed her to Wairau hospital, but she was pronounced dead a short time later. The driver of the car was taken to hospital and released with minor injuries.
The local said she heard shouting and screaming just after midnight on Friday when she was in bed reading theBible. "I opened the window for fresh air and I heard this awful shouting. It sounded like an argument, but at first I didn't go and check because it was dark and I didn't have a torch. I thought it could have been a party or something further down the road.
"I wish now I had done something, but the police said there was nothing I could do and that the youngsters had cellphones to call emergency services."
She said she saw flashing lights and heard screaming all night, even though her property is 10 metres down a driveway.
ByDavid Fisher|Email David
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No grace period for new teen drink driving ban
Published:3:22PM Saturday August 06, 2011Source: ONE Ne
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Source: ONE News
Police are warning teenage drivers there will be no grace period for strict new drink driving laws.
From midnight, teenage drivers will not be allowed to drink alcohol at all if they are driving.
The law is being changed because of the high number of teenagers in crashes involving alcohol.
Hard on the heels of the driving age being raised from from 15 to 16 at the beginning of this month, it will now be against the law for drivers under the age of 20 to consume alcohol before driving.
National Manager for Road Policing, Superintendent Paula Rose, told ONE News that when some young people are out, their friends put pressure on them to have a drink or two because they say "hey, you can get away with it".
But she said a zero alcohol limit sends a very clear message that "if you're driving, just no alcohol."
The Child and Youth Mortality Review Committee says it is delighted with this new policy.
The Committee, which works under the umbrella of the Health Quality & Safety Commission, reviews deaths of children and young people aged 28 days to 24 years, to find ways to prevent deaths in the future.
It said that every year about 130 young people aged 15 to 24 die from unintentional injury related to motor vehicles, and alcohol contributes to more than a third of these deaths.
The Committee said imposing a zero limit for drinking and driving by teens will "give absolute clarity" that any alcohol is too much to allow safe driving, and help turn New Zealand's grim statistics around.
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"We need to put as much separation as possible between the processes of young people learning how to drink alcohol responsibly and learning how to drive safely," said Dr Nick Baker, the Committee chair.
"We tend to underestimate the years it takes to develop driving skills, and alcohol causes a greater impairment in young people, at lower levels, than for older people."
The Committee said it is common for women under 24 and young men between 15 and 19 to die because of alcohol consumed by other people. It hoped the new law can help potential passengers by making it clear that if a driver under 20 has had any alcohol it is unsafe and the driver is breaking the law.
The owners of vehicles also have an important role to keep young people safe by not letting them use vehicles if they have consumed alcohol, The Committee said.
The new law will make boundary setting clearer and vehicle owners will be aware that their insurance cover may be impacted if their vehicle is damaged when being driven by a young driver who has consumed any alcohol, it said.
Baker said: "The combination of motor vehicles and alcohol is a major contributor to death and permanent injury in our young people. We must all work to keep young people safe around the most dangerous thing in their lives - motor vehicles."
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/zero-alcohol-limit-teen-drivers-welcomed-4340933
Call to charge people who let drunks drive
By Anita Moran of the Daily Post
4:20 PM Wednesday Sep 7, 2011
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Sonia Wilson says her daughter Whittney Robertson would still be alive if someone had stopped the drunk driver jailed for her death from getting behind the wheel. Photo / Alan Gibson
Rotorua coroner Wallace Bain has called for silent witnesses to become criminally responsible if they allow repeat drink-drivers to get behind the wheel.
The coroner released his findings yesterday on an inquest into the death of Rotorua 23-year-old Whittney Robertson.
Ms Robertson died instantly when disqualified repeat drink-driver, 35-year-old Royland Alexander McCann, smashed his 4WD head-on into the car in which she was a passenger near Atiamuri in May 2009.
McCann, now serving a four-year jail sentence, had been drinking the night of the crash. It was his fourth drink-driving offence.