Wrong-way drunk driver on North Van's Highway 1 handed 90-day ban

A Burnaby woman driving the wrong way on Highway 1 was stopped by police in North Vancouver and issued an immediate 90-day roadside driving prohibition after failing a breath test in the early hours of Monday morning.

Multiple witnesses called North Vancouver RCMP just before 3 a.m. Monday, Jan. 22, to report a white Kia was travelling westbound in the eastbound lanes with a flat tire on the Upper Levels highway near the Lynn Valley Road exit.

"There were a couple of near misses," said Const. Mansoor Sahak, spokesman for the North Vancouver RCMP.

Officers were quickly dispatched and located the vehicle near the Westview Drive exit on the highway.

A person driving a flagging truck had noticed the Kia travelling the wrong way with a flat tire – by this time at low speed – and had managed to pull in front of the Kia and stop the driver, said Sahak.

When officers spoke with the driver of the Kia, a Burnaby woman in her thirties, they noticed the driver smelled of alcohol and was unsteady on her feet, said Sahak. She also told officers that she had been drinking. The driver then failed a roadside breath test.

She was issued a 90-day immediate roadside prohibition and the vehicle was impounded for 30 days.

Driving with a flat tire is a "prime example" of what happens when someone is impaired by alcohol, said Sahak. "You lose the ability to comprehend certain things. We’re just glad that nobody got hurt. It could have been a deadly outcome.

“Wrong way drivers on a highway pose an extreme danger to motorists, especially when they are impaired,” said Sahak. “Fortunately, officers were able to act quickly and with assistance of the public, were able to locate this dangerous driver before a collision occurred.”

It’s not the first time for wrong-way drivers on the Upper Levels highway.

Members of the public have called police to report drivers heading the wrong way on the highway several times over the past year.

In August, multiple witnesses called police to report a vehicle travelling west in the eastbound traffic lane of the Upper Levels highway. Two other drivers narrowly avoided a head-on collision with that vehicle.

In November, a 29-year-old woman from Fernie, B.C., was charged with five counts of dangerous driving causing bodily harm in connection with an accident in 2022 in which a motorhome driving the wrong way on West Vancouver’s Highway 1 crashed head-on into a passenger car and caused a chain reaction involving several other vehicles.