Stolen from the Darwin Awards:
There is little doubt that an Australia, if not world, record has been set in Kununurra for drink/driving offences in the same vechicle. Between 9.20pm on July 5 (a Monday) and 12.40am on July 8 (last Thursday) a silver Mitsubishi Magna stationwagon was stopped 12 times and on each occasion the driver was found to be drunk and then charged. Not one driver - 10 different drivers, two of whom were caught twice. The 51-hour saga began on July 5 in Erythrina Street when a 36-year old woman was pulled over at 9.20pm and produced a blood alcohol reading of .151. At 10.55pm a 23-year old man was pulled over Speargrass Road and blew .205 - he also had no licence. An hour and 55 minutes later the car was stopped again and an unlicenced 22-year old woman blew .120. Police took the car back to it's registered address. Only minutes later police spotted the vehicle on Weaber Plain Road. It turned into a house in Barringtonia Street and a woman got out and ran. Police caught her and she refused a breath test, before running off again. Durring the struggle to arrest her she bit a police officer on the thumb and was eventually subdued with the use of pepper spray. A 26-year old woman was charged with refusing an alcohol test, driving without a licence, resisting arrest and assulting a police officer. She eventually blew .150. After that, the car had a fairly quiet day until 8.30 that night when it was pulled over and the 23-year old unlicenced driver from the night before blew .177. Police had dropped the man off at the police station when they spotted the vehicle again, this time on Messmate Way with an unlicenced 25-year old man at the wheel. He blew .161. Again the car was returned to the registered address and the people there warned not to drive it. By 10.30pm it was backin Messmate Way with an unlicenced 36-year old woman driving. She gave the police a wrong name and blew .186. By 12.50am it was back being pulled over in Barringtonia Street with an unlicenced 28-year old man at the wheel. He had only been released on parole from Broome Prison 17 hours earlier, but still managed to blow .180. Police put him in the back of the 'paddy wagon' and headed to a disturbance. They settled that down, but before they could return to the station they had spotted the now familiar Magna in Konkerberry Drive. They pulled it over in Ironwwd Drive only to find the same unlicenced man driving, who had been caught earlier in the evening. He blew .189. By 6.30pm the Magna was back in action on Casuarina Drive with a 34-yearold unlicenced woman at the wheel, getting ready to blow.173. The car was 'taken home' again, but by 7.15pm it was back on the Victoria Highway with an unlicenced 24-year old only 'just' in control with a blood alcohol of .221. At 12.40am last Thursday a 29-year old man became the last driver in the saga by blowing .110 when pulled over on Speargrass Road at the enterance to the Ranch Reserve. Snr Const. Dean Snashall said the car was then seized and kept until a sober and responsible person collected it. He said that in future any vechile in which more than one offence had taken place, would be seized and kept at the police station. He said that on many occasions when the car was pulled over, there were children without seatbelts inside, not to mention the dangers to other passengers and other motoristis and pedestrians. "Registered owners have to be responsible for thier vehicles or they will lose them," he said. Out of 16 drinkdriving offences in Kununurra last week, the Magna's drivers accounted for 12.
