A drink-driver who crashed into a utility pole, caused traffic chaos and put Paget residents in the dark has been banned from driving for 18 months.

Stacey Young, 43, admitted drink-driving when she appeared in Magistrates’ Court yesterday.

Young, from Warwick, was almost three times the legal alcohol limit when she drove into the roadside pole near the junction of Harbour Road and Highwood Lane on September 3, the court heard.

Police and Belco workers attended the scene and found that Young’s car and the pole were badly damaged.

Officers saw that Young was unsteady on her feet and breath tests showed that she had between 209 and 220 milligrams of alcohol in 100 millilitres of her blood. The legal limit for driving in Bermuda is 80mg/100ml.

The crash caused area residents to lose power and Harbour Road had to be closed to all traffic between Lover’s Lane and Chapel Road on September 4.

The closure resulted in significant traffic delays in and out of Hamilton. One person who left Somerset at 7.40am claimed it took three hours to reach the city.

It also entailed a round-the-clock job for Belco workers, described by the power company as “a complex emergency response that required immediate action”.

The Ministry of Public Works announced that the road reopened at 7.25am on September 5.

Young was fined $1,500 in addition to the ban.

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