Police target non-drivers in driving offence crackdown

The police have caught two suspects of serious driving offences. Although the cases are separate and unrelated, both men were intercepted and charged with the driving offences despite the fact that neither was actually driving, the Public Security Police Force (PSP) informed in a press conference held yesterday afternoon at the PSP’s headquarters.
In the first case, a 40-year-old local resident was spotted by a patrolling police officer on Avenida de Kwong Tung in Taipa around 6:20 a.m. on August 27. According to police information, the officer found the man resting inside a parked vehicle with the engine running.
After approaching the suspect, the police officer noticed an intense alcoholic odor and requested the man to participate in a breathalyzer test. The test showed a result of 3.16g/L; an amount that, according to police standards, placed him close to entering a coma.
Although he was not driving at the time, the man was accused of driving under the influence and sentenced to a three-month jail term. The man’s license was also suspended for two years and he received a driving prohibition order for one year.
The second case occurred on August 26 around 8:30 p.m. at Estrada Marginal da Ilha Verde, when a vehicle failed to comply with an order to pull-over by a police officer who was performing a car inspection operation in that location.
Following a police chase, the car and its occupants were finally intercepted near the football field of Rua Sul do Canal dos Patos.
At that time the alleged driver was a women around 20 years old who presented herself at the wheel of the car, but police officers who witnessed the incident claim to have seen the man next to her driving the vehicle at the time that it was ordered to stop for inspection.
Further investigation revealed that the man (19), who failed to show a valid driver’s license when requested, does not possess such a document and he was in fact previously caught on two occasions driving without a legal document back in April 2013 and May 2016.
The duo were both sent to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP), and the man was charged with illegal driving while the woman was charged for shielding, a crime punishable by Macau’s Penal Code article 331.