New Year’s Eve is a time when many people gather with friends and family to celebrate the end of one year and the beginning of the next. These celebrations usually involve alcohol. In fact, the busiest time of year for drunk driving begins on the night before Thanksgiving and ends on New Year’s Eve. Between Christmas and New Year’s, 40% of traffic-related deaths are attributable to drunk drivers. However, despite that statistic, New Year’s Eve doesn’t top the list for the most number of drunken driving arrests – it only falls in at number 7.
WSB-TV reports on an early New Year’s Day crash where a driver allegedly three times over the legal limit slammed into a police car.
At about 2:20 a.m. on Ga. 400 at Holcomb Bridge Road, a police officer had stopped to assist with an accident. The officer sat in her patrol car for a moment, then said that she “got a bad feeling” and stepped out of the car.
Moments after the officer stepped out of the car, Megan Johnson slammed into the cruiser. Police say that Johnson never hit the brakes and according to witnesses, narrowly missed officers that were on the scene.
Johnson acknowledges seeing the flashing blue lights of the police cars and said that she did not know why she did not stop. She suffered from only a scratch in the accident.
A field sobriety test was administered at the scene, which Johnson failed. A breathalyzer revealed that she was almost three times the legal limit of .08%.
Johnson is facing charges of DUI and failure to yield to an emergency vehicle.
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