‘This law is there to make sure there’s distance between you when you are drunk and a vehicle’
Pulling into a parking lot and stopping because he had decided he was too drunk to drive was not enough to prevent a Smith’s man from earning a $1,000 fine and one year driving ban.
Police found 32-year-old Brian Simmons asleep with his legs out of his car and the key in the ignition and lights on in the Somerset Bridge Post Office parking lot at 3.01am Monday morning.
Senior Magistrate Archibald Warner told Simmons the Island’s impaired driving law was written to “make sure there’s distance between you when you are drunk, impaired, and a vehicle”.
Mr Warner added: “If you have got the keys to the vehicle and are impaired, there is a great likelihood, because you are impaired, that you are going to drive your car.”
Simmons was awakened and told the officers that he had been drinking and, while driving home, decided that he was not fit to drive. As a result, he parked the vehicle and decided to “sleep it off”.
In court Simmons said he had not driven the vehicle after drinking but Mr Warner explained that merely having the keys while impaired is enough to earn a conviction for being in care and control of a vehicle.
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