{"id":207472,"date":"2025-12-29T23:44:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-29T23:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/207472\/"},"modified":"2025-12-29T23:44:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-29T23:44:10","slug":"sunlive-tauranga-driver-allegedly-six-times-over-limit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/207472\/","title":{"rendered":"SunLive – Tauranga driver allegedly six times over limit"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Tauranga man is \u201clucky to be alive\u201d after crashing his car through a fence while allegedly more than six times over the legal alcohol limit, says the head of Western Bay of Plenty road policing.<\/p>\n

Senior Sergeant Wayne Hunter said the 31-year-old was among several people caught drink-driving in Tauranga over the past week.<\/p>\n

The man allegedly returned a breath-alcohol reading of 1835 micrograms of alcohol per litre of breath on the evening of December 28 after his vehicle ploughed through a fence on Turret Rd.<\/p>\n

The reading was more than six times the adult legal limit of 250 micrograms.<\/p>\n

\"Western

\nWestern Bay of Plenty road policing manager Senior Sergeant Wayne Hunter. Photo \/ NZME<\/p>\n

Hunter said as well as damage to the property owner\u2019s fence, the man\u2019s car sustained \u201cmoderate damage\u201d and the driver was automatically suspended from driving for 28 days.<\/p>\n

Because the driver opted for a blood test, Hunter said it would take two to three weeks for the results to be processed.<\/p>\n

While only a handful of people had been caught drink-driving in Tauranga in the past week, Hunter expected that number to rise as New Year celebrations approached.<\/p>\n

He urged people not to drive if they had consumed alcohol or non-prescribed drugs.<\/p>\n

\"Senior

\nSenior Sergeant Wayne Hunter at Tauranga Police Station. Photo \/ Alex Cairns<\/p>\n

Drivers\u2019 behaviour on police radar<\/p>\n

Hunter said in general, driver behaviour across the district had been \u201cvery good\u201d this holiday period, as police continued to target drivers speeding, using phones and not wearing seatbelts.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cDespite a lot of congestion, particularly in Tauranga\u2019s CBD and on the highways, most people have been patient and not taking unnecessary risks.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems drivers in general are taking on board our safety messages, which is exactly what we have hoped for, and that\u2019s very pleasing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Compared to last year\u2019s Christmas holiday enforcement period, Hunter said the infringement notices issued in the Western Bay of Plenty \u2013 particularly on SH29 \u2013 had dropped \u201cconsiderably\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd we want to keep it that way as we head into the New Year and beyond.\u201d<\/p>\n

With a poor weather forecast for New Year\u2019s, Hunter urged drivers to take \u201cextreme care\u201d on the roads.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need people to take extreme care, drive to the conditions, slow down, watch their following distances, wear a seat belt and put down their phones.\u201d<\/p>\n

Police had received \u201cquite a few\u201d complaints through the 105 phoneline about dangerous driving, though Hunter said callers sometimes forgot to provide the registration number of the offending vehicle.<\/p>\n

\u201cRest assured, we follow up on all these complaints if we can identify the other vehicle and the driver.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anyone involved in a road-rage incident should immediately call 111, he said, warning motorists not to pursue the other driver as situations could escalate.<\/p>\n

Sandra Conchie<\/a> is a senior journalist at the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post who has been a journalist for 25 years. She mainly covers police, court and other justice stories, as well as general news. She has been a Canon Media Awards regional\/community reporter of the year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Tauranga man is \u201clucky to be alive\u201d after crashing his car through a fence while allegedly more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":207473,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-207472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}