A police officer allegedly driving under the influence (DUI) of alcohol on Saturday sideswiped seven vehicles and injured six people in Kaohsiung.
Investigators said Chang Po-chun (張博鈞), 40, attended a gathering with friends, where he drank three bottles of beer.
After a brief nap in his car in a parking lot, Chang decided to drive home, they said.
At about 11pm, when he was making a right turn on a main road in Zuoying District (左營), he hit another car, five motorcycles and a bicycle, slightly injuring six people.
A Breathalyzer test on Chang showed he had a blood alcohol level of 0.89 milligrams per liter (mg/L), well over the legal limit of 0.25mg/L.
He was released on NT$150,000 bail the next day.
Chang later apologized and promised to compensate the injured.
In related news, the Tainan branch of the Taiwan High Court on Monday sentenced a repeat DUI offender to eight months in prison.
The man, surnamed Lin (林), had been caught driving under the influence of alcohol eight times, with his latest offense in January, investigators said.
The high court struck down an earlier ruling that sentenced Lin to six months in prison, which could have been commuted to a fine.
In another drunk driving incident, Taichung police on April 11 stopped a driver, surnamed Hsu (許), during a routine check and found his blood alcohol level to be at 0.19mg/L.
They let him go with a minor traffic ticket, as he was below the legal limit, police said.
However, a background check on April 14 showed it was Hsu’s second time drunk driving within five years, they said.
He was fined NT$90,000 and had his truck confiscated and his driver’s license suspended in accordance with the Road Traffic Management and Penalty Act (道路交通管理處罰條例), police said.
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