Just thought I'd share!

Coming back from a ride Thursday evening and passing through some woods into a local car park.
Pass a guy on the path clearly so drunk he was struggling to walk. The car park is set back from the car park of the pub (I assume) he had come from. There is no other in walking distance.
I stop in the car park 100 yards on to see if he is really going to get into a car. He does and proceeds to reverse out straight into another car!
He drives forward and I try to block the entrance shouting at him to stop. I decide on not putting myself in between him and the exit as I suspected he was not going to stop!

I have never seen anybody in such a state even consider driving a car. I even feel a little guilty that I didnt intervene when he was getting into his car.

Called the police gave all the details and descriptions, registration of vehicles etc, basically everything that would be needed to at least drive around to his house and lock him up.
I havent heard anything. Will/should I?

Well done Fella. I'd be surprised if you heard anything but would be even more surprised if they hadn't paid him a visit and taken his licence off him.

Right thing to do. Good job.

Yep, right thin to have done, good man!

Here's a tale. I'm heading towards my exit on the M25 and traffic is backed up behind a very obviously pissed driver, swerving like a prick. He takes my exit and I ring the police as he's proceeding to take the roundabout with his eyes seemingly closed. He narrowly misses a cyclist, then a lorry. I follow him to for a couple of minutes, he takes a side road and drives into two parked cars as he parks up and walks into a house. The Police don't arrive and I then get a text message giving me their Non Emergency number. **** Old Bill !!!!

Don't you get some sort of reward for shopping drink drivers….or is that just at xmas time?

he may well supply enough evidence by himself that they don't hae to bother with you.

I followed one for a wee while a couple of years back. Rang the police and they said they would send someone. In the meantime we came to some lights that were just changing to red. He did stop…..and promptly fell asleep !! It was bluddy funny actually, anyway he woke up to me beeping my horn, took off across 2 lanes (nothing in them) and then my phone rang and it was the police tellin gme to put my hazards on as they wanted to know which car, did that, they pulled up beside him and he rammed them ! I think he was well and truly done though. Still remember the numberplate, LFC 1 🙂

About 3 years ago my wife woke me up at 3am telling me to "put some trousers on and get outside NOW". I grab some shorts thinking the place is on fire and head out to find a Volvo upside down half on the footpath outside the house. Driver had taken a nasty bang on the head and was asking us not to call the police as he'd sort his car out once he'd had a rest. You could smell the booze on him from about 10 feet away. The police and ambulance came and sorted it all out.

Impressive thing (and scary thing had it not been 3am) was he must have been doing 50mph or so in the tiny residential road we lived in at the time because he'd got airborne off a speed bump and rolled it off the top of the wing of a car about 20-30 feet down the road.

Never found out what happened but I hope at the very least he's still not driving because if that had been daytime he'd have killed someone.

Still remember the numberplate, LFC 1

😆

he may well supply enough evidence by himself that they don't hae to bother with you

My concern is that he pulls over and reports his car stolen etc. Thats Why I wanted to be involved in identifying the driver as it was clearly his car. That opportunity may be lost.

Surfer

If they caught him drunk still in his car, that would be more than enough to do him without your evidence. If they didn't, it's unlikely that there would be enough evidence even with you being able to identify him and state that he was driving. There are a variety of offences you can prosecute someone for related to drink driving, but at least one of the following would be required for a prosecution to succeed
1) A specific reading of how much alcohol is in him either from the machine at the police station, or from his urine, or from blood taken by a doctor.
2) In the absence of any of those, evidence from a doctor that he was impaired through drink.
3) His refusal without good reason to comply with the procedures the police would require him to undergo.
All those rely on him being arrested and then subject to the various procedures that follow.

Frustrating though it undoubtedly is for you, if he got home (or whoever he was going) before the police got him, then he's got away with it this time. (I've seen someone sprinting up a driveway to grab hold of a bloke before he got his front door open. Fortunately he was so pissed he dropped his keys). Only in certain specific circumstances may the police kick someone's door down and enter there house to require them to take a breath test.

You make a good point about not hearing anything back. The reality is that if the police don't need a statement from you, for whatever reason, they probably won't get back to you. It would though be courteous if nothing else to give you a quick ring back to thank you and let you know the outcome.

It would though be courteous if nothing else to give you a quick ring back to thank you and let you know the outcome.

Thanks for the explanation.

Not sure of the protocol but they gave me an incident/reference number so I may call next week. The worst they can do is tell me they wont tell me!!

You're welcome.

There's no reason not to tell you what happened, it's not as if they'll be divulging any personal information about him.

Just as an aside, if I can build a strong enough case using only police officers evidence then I generally do so, to try and spare civilian witnesses the disruption, inconvenience, and in many cases nerves/stress, of having to give evidence in court. Not many people enjoy it. At least the police are getting paid for all their wasted time sat outside courts! Obviously in a lot of cases that's impossible to do, but for drink drivers it usually would be.

Good thing you didn't block his exit.

Idiot drunk drivers don't realise until they kill someone and get 6 months ban and £50 fine.

Get a taxi dumbo!