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Wrong-way drunk driver in North Van handed 90-day ban

Wrong-way driver banned

A drunk driver in North Vancouver narrowly avoided zooming onto a highway in the wrong direction Friday night.

North Vancouver RCMP officers were driving on Mount Seymour Parkway around 10:20 p.m., approaching Lillooet Road, when they saw the driver of a Ford Fiesta make a left-hand turn and head the wrong way on to a Highway 1 off-ramp.

Other vehicles on the off-ramp had to quickly swerve out of the way to avoid a collision, said RCMP Const. Mansoor Sahak.

Fortunately, officers were able to act quickly and pull over the driver before that person made it on to the highway, where he would have met ongoing lanes of traffic.

The driver, a man in his 40s from New Westminster, failed two roadside screening tests. He was handed a 90-day driving ban and his car was impounded for 30 days.

The incident comes just 10 days after a motorhome was driven the wrong way down the Upper Levels highway in West Vancouver, resulting in a multi-vehicle crash between the 22nd Street and Cypress Bowl Road exits that sent six people to hospital, seriously injuring two of them.

That crash is still under investigation.



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