‘Too many Chch drivers ignoring traffic blitz’

Press, 7 December 1981, Page 1

‘Too many Chch drivers ignoring traffic blitz’

Far too many Christchurch drivers were still ignoring the Christmas drink-driving “blitz,” now in its second week, said the Ministry of Transport yesterday.

"They just don't seem to have got the message, even with all the advertising and the number of units we have had out on the streets,” said a spokesman. Between 4 p.m. on Friday and last evening, traffic officers gave 35 drivers initial breath screening tests on the roadside. Twenty-nine of the 35 drivers' gave evidential breath tests, and 14 blood samples were taken. Six more blood tests were taken in hospital from persons who had been involved in accidents, and two persons were arrested. Twenty-five traffic officers were on the road in and around Christchurch for most of the week-end, many of them working extended hours. The “blitz” started on November 27 and will continue through the Christmas and New Year celebrations to January 3. The Ministry is determined to deter the drinking driver this time, and Christchurch’s chief traffic officer (Mr W. R. Fox) has warned: “If people want to continue to drink and drive it is going to be an expensive business for them.” It was an eventful weekend on Christchurch roads apart from the “blitz," with 15 injury accidents and nine non-injury accidents reported

between Friday afternoon and last evening. After a hectic pursuit from Kaiapoi and through Christchurch on Saturday evening, a man was finally apprehended after his vehicle and a traffic patrol car collided in Shortland Street, Wainoni. The chase had started about 9.30 p.m. after the man's driving had attracted the attention of an officer in Kaiapoi. Alcohol was not involved, said a Ministry spokesman. The man will appear in the District Court on summons on a variety of traffic charges. The Ministry still sought last evening the driver of a red Austin A4O Farina car which failed to stop after “brushing against” a cyclist near the intersection of Woodham Road and Rowcliffe Crescent at 11.52 a.m. yesterday. The car was said to have rough paint and bodywork. The cyclist was knocked to the roadway but was not seriously injured. A motor-cyclist was reported to be in a comfortable condition in a burns isolation ward at Burwood Hospital last evening after his machine crashed and caught fire on the Main South Road about 1.20 p.m. on Saturday. Mr Stephen Mcßae, aged

24, of Williams Street, Timaru. suffered severe burns to the legs. A man who had to be cut from the wreckage of a car which struck a pole in Marshland Road on Friday night was improving in Christchurch . Hospital last evening. Mr Kelvin Jones, aged 27, of Barnes Road, Styx, had been moved from the intensivecare unit to a ward but was still on the seriously ill list.