A lorry driver in Málaga was ten times over the alcohol limit when he crashed into a parked, Guardia Civil patrol car… In fact, he was so far gone, that when he smacked against a car parked on the hard shoulder, he didn’t notice, but the Guardia Civil inside the car certainly did and were keen to chat to him about it.

The accident occurred around 13.00h one day on the A-7 where it passes by the City of Málaga on a 4-lane stretch, near the Vierrena quarter. The patrol car was parked on the hard shoulder because they were helping out another lorry driver with mechanical problems. The stranded lorry was well marked off with warning triangles. In fact, the two policeman had already enlisted the help of motorway maintenance workers who were working nearby, getting them to also place traffic cones and park their van with its high-visibility warning lights – all to little avail, evidently.

Our alcohol-awash driver – a 43-year-old Romanian, driving in plain daylight, shot past the warning triangles, plunged past the parked van with its flashing warning lights… and lunged into the police patrol car. Fortunately, the contact was only a glancing blow, scraping down the side, wiping out the wing mirror and hours of lovingly polished paint work.

However, divorced from any visual stimulus outside the driving cab, he motored on. The policemen, gathered up their drooping jaws from the road surface, jumped into the dented car and set off in pursuit. It took moments to overtake him and cautiously slow him to a halt.

As soon as he wound down the cab window, it was obvious that the driver was no stranger to the odd tipple and a prime text-book candidate for a breathalyzer test. On the first wheeze he scored an impressive 1.4 mg per litre of air. After a spontaneous burst of applause he was informed that the limit was in fact 0.5 mg for professional drivers.

He was arrested.

(News: Malaga, Andalucia)