Woman five times the drink drive limit blames passenger for crashing into line of cars

A woman driving while more than five times the legal limit of alcohol crashed into the back of a line of cars, and blamed her passenger for the distraction. Photo / 123RF

A driver five times over the legal alcohol limit tried to blame her passenger when she crashed into a line of stopped traffic, saying she was distracted by their conversation.

But Christie Lee Nash had been drinking beer and tequila at a local hotel before driving home on the afternoon of November 18 last year, while more than five times the legal limit.

The minor collision landed the 48-year-old Nelson woman with nine months’ supervision and 100 hours of community work.

Nash is also off the road for the next 15 months, after her third drink-drive conviction which arose from the collision with the tail end of a line of cars ahead, not realising they had stopped.

The Richmond cleaner has now admitted a charge of driving with excess breath alcohol for a third or subsequent time, plus another of careless driving, having told police at the time she was distracted by the passenger she was talking with at the time.

After the collision, which immobilised her utility vehicle when its cooling system was punctured, a police evidential breath test showed she had 1376 micrograms of alcohol per litre of breath.

The legal limit for a driver aged over 20 is 250 mcg of alcohol per litre of breath.

Police prosecution told the Nelson District Court today that on the afternoon Nash was driving home, a long line of congested traffic heading south was travelling very slowly in a 50km/h zone of State Highway 6, near an intersection in Richmond.

As Nash approached the tail end of the line, she failed to see the traffic ahead was at a standstill, and hit the back of another ute.

No one was hurt, but both vehicles were damaged.

Nash told police she was heading home a short distance from the local hotel where she’d been, and had been talking with her passenger which was why she hadn’t seen the traffic ahead was stopped.

Her lawyer, Rob Ord, told the court she accepted it had been “very poor judgment” on her part.

Judge Tony Zohrab accepted that while no one had been hurt, the level of alcohol in Nash’s system was “incredibly high”.

“It concerns me you didn’t think you were over the limit.”

Judge Zohrab also noted her previous convictions had been in the mid to late 1990s.

He said because Nash no longer had a vehicle suitable for an interlock device, he disqualified her from driving for 15 months on each charge.

Once the disqualification period was over she would then be subject to a three-year zero-alcohol licence.