Breath testing caught out Ahipara residents driving from the clubrooms at the local golf club, despite the fact that they caught have walked home.
Kaitaia's senior police officer was bemused last week, and frustrated, to learn that two Ahipara residents had been charged with driving with excess alcohol after leaving the golf club.
Senior Sergeant Russell Richards said he knew the two people charged, and knew where they lived, just a few hundred metres
from the clubrooms (where they had attended the Best of the West game fishing tournament prize-giving).
One had recorded 588 micrograms of alcohol per litre of breath, the other 441 micrograms. The legal limit for drivers aged 20 years and over is 250 micrograms.
"It is frustrating that people in this community continue to drink and drive, but even more frustrating when they plan to drive no more than a couple of hundred metres," Mr Richards said.
"There is never a good reason to drink and drive, but it makes no sense at all when you are so close to home. These two could easily have walked but opted to drive, and now they are about to find themselves in court."
