(ADAM PROSKIW / iNFOnews.ca)
March 24, 2015 - 2:17 PM
LUMBY - When an alleged drunk driver was pulled over for failing to stop at a Lumby stop sign last week Mounties saw two small children in the vehicle belted into car seats.
Officers from the North Okanagan Traffic Services were sitting in an unmarked car at 7:50 p.m., Tuesday, March 17, when the van came into view in the area of Highway 6 and Shuswap Avenue in Lumby, according to a media release. They watched as the driver of the minivan blasted past the stop sign at a high rate of speed then come to a stop in front of the Lumby RCMP detachment. Officers say the driver then got out of the vehicle, began walking south up the middle of Shuswap Avenue then got back into the van and took off.
Deciding they should check the vehicle, police pulled the minivan over in the 200 block of Mabel Lake Road.
"A check of the vehicle found five occupants, three adults all were under the influence of liquor and two children that were appropriately strapped in their car seats," RCMP spokesperson Gord Molendyk says in the release. "After speaking to the 29-year-old male driver, he was arrested... for impaired driving. He became combative with the two officers. He was subdued and taken into custody."
Molendyk says the officers were concerned for the well-being of the children and called the Ministry of Child and Family Development Services who arranged for the maternal grandparents to come pick the youngsters up.
"Our officers are very concerned about the number of drivers in the North Okanagan they have encountered drinking and driving over the past several months," Molendyk says. "In a case like this the children in the vehicle could certainly have been put at risk."
To contact the reporter for this story, email Charlotte Helston at chelston@infonews.ca or call 250-309-5230. To contact the editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.
News from © iNFOnews, 2015