A man from Galăți who was stopped in traffic by a road patrol challenged in court the fine he received and the sanction of suspension of his driver's license on the grounds that he had eaten a horn with champagne at work and did not think that he would violate road rules.
The driver's license was suspended for a period of 90 days PHOTO archive The truth
On April 15, the Galati Court rejected the complaint filed by a man against a sanction report, by which his license had been suspended for 90 days and he had been fined 1,450 lei for driving under the influence of alcoholic beverages. The court's decision is not final.
The alleged contravention took place in the area of Police Department 2 in Galati on 15.08.2023. A road patrol stopped the car of the man from Galăța in traffic and tested him with the Drager device, the result being 0.15 mg/l of pure alcohol in the exhaled air.
In court, the driver pleaded not guilty to the offense as he had consumed a champagne flute at work and it would not have been a road traffic offence.
“This claim cannot be retained by the court because it is irrelevant how the petitioner came to have a certain alcoholic intoxication, the only relevant aspect being the fact that he drove under the influence of alcohol. Thus, the simple fact that the petitioner was detected with an alcohol imbibition of 0.15 mg/l of pure alcohol in the exhaled air is sufficient for the detention of the contravention, regardless of the voluntary or involuntary way of ingesting it”, the court determined.
The judge handling the case also dismissed the driver's claim that he was denied a request for a blood sample immediately after he was stopped in traffic by traffic officers.
“It is found that, at the time of sanctioning, the petitioner did not want to have biological samples collected in order to establish his blood alcohol level, according to the mentions in the contravention report, his subsequent claims regarding the refusal of the police bodies to take him to take the samples being of blood mere allegations, without any evidentiary basisand which therefore cannot be retained by the court”concluded the magistrate.
