A 52-year old Sicamous-area man has been charged with impaired driving after leaving the scene of a single vehicle accident where police found his licence plate.
Sicamous RCMP Const. Pat Pyper says that on Sunday, Nov. 18 at around 2 p.m., the detachment received a report of an impaired driver travelling west through Malakwa along the Trans-Canada Highway.
Investigating officers found a damaged utility pole but no vehicle. They did find a front licence plate, believed to have broken off the suspect’s vehicle after the driver veered right off the highway and hit a lamp post, reported Pyper.
Pyper said police then received a report of a “guy at a residence who had been drinking,” and whose vehicle had extensive front-end damage.
Police eventually located the damaged vehicle, a green Saturn, with the 52-year-old driver, on Arnold Frontage Road.
“He denied hitting anything,” says Pyper, “but the deployed airbag had been cut out and was on the driver’s seat.”
Pyper said the suspect had also repaired a front tire, and the damaged tire was found in the backseat.
The man’s vehicle was towed and he was administered a 90-day driving prohibition, as well as being charged with impaired driving.
Police are also investigating a single motor vehicle incident that occurred on Saturday, Nov. 17 at around 1 p.m.
Pyper says the driver, who had been out hunting, was driving westbound on Highway 1 when he crossed double solid lines, drove into a guard rail and eventually wound up going down an embankment.
The driver was taken to hospital and released the same day. Pyper says police are chalking the incident up to fatigue, and the man is being charged with driving without due care and attention.