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Drink driver crashes at caravan park

By Monique Preston

Aug 7, 2024

A driver was three times the legal blood alcohol limit when he crashed his car.

A driver was three times the legal blood alcohol limit when he crashed into a car at a Goulburn Valley caravan park on New Year’s Day, a court has heard.

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Albert Makara, 55, who now lives in Mildura, pleaded guilty in Shepparton Magistrates’ Court to drink-driving, driving while disqualified, breaching a licence condition and breaching an alcohol interlock condition.

Prosecutor Leading Senior Constable Anna Hanlon told the court police were called to the Merrigum Caravan Park in Merrigum to reports of Makara crashing his Hyundai into a stationary Toyota Corolla and then driving away on January 1.

When he was breath-tested by police, Makara recorded a blood alcohol concentration of 0.15.

His driver’s licence had a condition that he must have an alcohol interlock on any vehicle that he drove, as well as a condition that he doesn’t have any alcohol in his system.

He had also been disqualified from driving at the time.

The court was told the Hyundai was not fitted with an alcohol interlock device.

The car was impounded.

Leading Sen Constable Hanlon told the court that Makara, who was living in Merrigum at the time, admitted to police that he had been drinking and told them he needed to drive “to get to work, and life was hard”.

Representing himself in court, Makara said he had “quit drinking a long time ago” but had drank on this occasion “because it was New Year’s”.

Makara was fined a total of $1200.

Magistrate Simon Zebrowski also cancelled his driver’s licence for 33 months – three months longer than the drink-driving minimum for a repeat offence – because he was also driving without an interlock device fitted, and he had a crash and had driven away from it.

The licence cancellation was backdated to January 1, as he was given an immediate driving ban on the day.