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A judge was alarmed to hear a Sarnia dump truck driver had a cooler of beer in his cab and blood alcohol about 4.5 times the legal limit when he crashed into a south-end hydro pole this summer.
“Those are scary readings,” he said while sentencing Jessi Hogarth, 33, to a $2,500 fine, driving ban and probation. “Those aren’t the highest readings I or my colleagues have seen, but they’re certainly among the highest.”
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A northbound dump truck at Scott Road and St. Andrew Street about 10:20 a.m. Sept. 10 failed to navigate a turn and crashed into a ditch, Sarnia police have said. No one was hurt.
Hogarth tried unsuccessfully to reverse out of the ditch several times, police said.
When officers arrived, Hogarth appeared dazed, moved slowly, and had glossy, bloodshot eyes and slurred his words, court heard.
He was arrested and officers found a cooler with four cold tall boy cans of beer – one of them open – in the truck’s cab.
Breath tests later showed he had between 350 and 360 milligrams of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood, about 4.5 times the legal limit of 80 milligrams, court heard.
The judge again pointed out the very high readings.
“The difference between you hitting a telephone pole and hitting a pedestrian or a cyclist or another car is pure chance,” he said. “It’s Russian roulette.”
Hogarth, who had no prior criminal record, recently pleaded guilty to impaired driving. Nila Mulpuru, Lambton’s acting Crown attorney, asked for a $3,000 fine, three times higher than the mandatory minimum of $1,000 for a first-time offender.
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“That is to account for the significant readings in this case as well as the collision and the fact that it was a commercial vehicle,” she said.
Hogarth, who represented himself in court, told the judge he was driving part-time and had been out of trucking for many years after a serious crash.
“The day in question, I just went out the night before and made a bad judgment call coming in the next day,” he said. “My boss gives me a little bit of a hard time for not showing up when I’m needed, so I felt compelled to arrive for duty.”
He added he didn’t think he had a problem with alcohol. The judge suggested adding one year of probation to look into that issue further. He also decided to lower the fine to $2,500 and imposed a mandatory one-year driving ban.
A second charge police laid at the time was dropped.
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