Drink driver: My family are furious and friends are not returning my calls
A DRIVER who crashed while more than double the limit admitted that his family were furious at his behaviour.
Police were called following the collision close to Ainley Top roundabout on December 27.
David Price’s Audi had hit the central reservation on Blackley New Road and when the officers spoke with him they smelt alcohol on his breath.
The 35-year-old said he’d drunk two vodka and cokes and a glass of wine several hours before, prosecutor Vanessa Jones said.
She told Kirklees magistrates that Price was arrested following a positive roadside breath test.
Further tests showed that he had 78 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath.
This is more than double the legal limit of 35 microgrammes.
Price, of Edgerton Green in Edgerton, pleaded guilty to driving while over the prescribed limit.
He explained to magistrates: “I’d taken the car out believing I was fit to drive.
“Clearly I was wrong in that assumption. I completely miscalculated the amount of alcohol drink of vodka after his vehicle broke down and he believed this contributed to his high reading, although he still would have been over the limit.
He told magistrates that he was also under a high level of stress at the time as his partner had suffered a stroke.
Price admitted that his criminal conviction will damage the property business he was aiming to establish this year.
He said to magistrates: “I have damaged my fledgling business I’m trying to set up as not being able to drive will hamper us in the property portfolio.
“I’ve damaged my reputation. My family members are quite rightly furious with me for this situation.
“Friends are not returning my phone calls because they are embarrassed for the situation I’ve caused.”
Price voiced his concern that the incident will set back his partner’s recovery.
Magistrates banned him from driving for 20 months.
He was fined £500 and will have to pay £85 court costs and £20 victim surcharge.