A 69-year-old Irish woman collided with three vehicles yesterday while she was trying to leave a parking space in the tourist resort town of Puerto Rico de Gran Canaria. A breathalyser test revealed she was six times over the alcohol limit allowed, and so she was arrested on road safety charges.

The events occurred, directly outside The Devil’s Pub, just before 10:30am when, it is thought, the driver was trying to leave a parking space located on the main street through the town Avenida Tomás Roca Bosch. As she was reversing her Toyota Rav4, she mistakenly applied the accelerator instead of the brake, colliding with a vehicle  traveling along the road as well as two others that were parked, and managed to roll the vehicle onto its side.

six times over the limit

Images: Alejandro Ramirez (LaProvincia)

Firefighters, from the nearby Puerto Rico Park Consortium, Mogán Local Police and two ambulances from the Canary Islands Emergency Service (SUC) attended the scene, securing the vehicle, while the health workers attended to the driver, who suffered a mild neck injury, according to a report from the main 112 Emergencies and Security Coordinating Centre (CECOES).

Mogán Local Police carried out the breathalyser test on the driver, who lives in nearby Tauro, which produced a result of 1.07 milligrams alcohol per litre of exhaled air in the first test, and then 1.57 in the second. This amount is six times over the 0.25 milligrams allowed, the woman was detained and is expected to be charged as the alleged perpetrator of a crime against road safety, having far exceeded the actionable threshold of 0.60 milligrams.