Alcohol offender

Policeman prevents automatic car from hitting house

A courageous driver (29) chased an elderly drunk driver (66) from Marchtrenk all the way home on Shrove Tuesday. The drunk driver arrived there safely, but forgot to activate the brakes on his car. An alert patrolman was only just able to prevent the rolling car from crashing into a building. Two women also had to surrender their driving licenses.

What fools! On the last night of carnival, two women and one man were caught behind the wheel in Marchtrenk, Wels and Traun. One woman from Wels (42) was under the influence of drugs and tried to drive away from the police. The second, a Linz woman (also 42), had a drunken stupor in Traun - and the man, a Marchtrenker (66), was also heavily intoxicated. He was caught because a young driver had called the police.

The 29-year-old reports: "At around 7.45 pm, a car came towards me on Welser Straße in Marchtrenk at high speed and in serpentine lines. It was almost halfway on my side of the road. I swerved to the right. It was really very close, but I only just managed to avoid it."

The young driver turned around and pursued the fleeing senior citizen, alerting the police and following the intoxicated driver to his house. When a plainclothes patrol arrived there, the drunk driver had already run into the house. However, his automatic car was in "D" and the "ghost car" drove straight towards the wall of the house. A sporty police officer managed to stop the car just before the collision. The driver's breathalyzer test showed 1.4 per mille.

"I don't understand why people drink too much and then get in the car anyway," mused the young police officer in conversation.