Driver unaware she was over the limit
Hamish Hutchinson • Published 13 Sep 2012 13:30
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A WOMAN was caught drink driving after she overdosed on medication, Alloa Sheriff Court heard.
Karen Haslam (43) claimed that because she mistakenly took double the dosage she could not tell she was over the limit.
The mother-of-two was caught driving almost twice the legal limit.
She was fined £350 and banned from the roads for a year on Thursday.
Haslam, of Springfield Road, Alloa, pled guilty to driving with 69 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath - the legal limit is 35mcg - on 14 August.
Fiscal depute Ann MacNeill said an anonymous tip-off at 6.50am alerted the police that Haslam was drink-driving.
Officers pulled her car over as she was heading along the A91 between Menstrie and Alva.
She was breathalysed and found to be over the limit.
Miss Parker, defending, said her client had been drinking the previous evening.
She said, "She had been drinking in the evening but went to bed at 10.30pm. She had been drinking since 7pm and advised me she had a quarter bottle of vodka."
Ms Parker explained that Haslam got up in the morning, took her medication and left.
She added that her client had been unwittingly overdosing on her prescribed medication which caused her to feel "numb and not in control".
Ms Parker added, "Her position is she would never have driven her car if she had known she was over the limit of alcohol."
This article appeared in Alloa & Hillfoots Advertiser 12 Sep 12
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