The driver was arrested twice in the space of a week.
The moment a transporter driver was caught by police after being reported for snorting cocaine behind the wheel has been caught on camera.
Film crews from Channel 5’s Traffic Cops followed North Yorkshire Police as they made a series of arrests. The hour-long programme aired at 8pm on Monday, February 6. The docu-series showed the moments the driver was arrested on two separate occasions for the same offence, the first time after he’s driven over 1,000 miles in a single day.
When York Force Control received the intel about the unnamed driver, they’d received reports he’d sniffed ‘white powder’ and then gotten into the lorry and driven away.
Traffic cops Rich Ellis and Rich Clarke made pursuit of the vehicle. They said: “We respond regularly to tip offs from members of the public, people loath drink and drug drivers. They’re a menace to society and a danger to road users and themselves.”
The driver was behind the wheel of a three-tonne transporter and police said he was “driving all over the road” and speeding. When they signalled to him to pull over, he initially failed to stop and officers had to chase him.
When they did manage to get him to pull over, officers learned he’d driven over 1,000 miles that day. He tested positive for cocaine.
When it came back positive, the driver said: “Give up! Are you taking the p***?” He then denied taking cocaine that day and then said he’d taken it in the last 20 days.
A few days later, he was spotted driving near Leeds and there were reports he’d sniffed cocaine with a £5 note and driven away in a lorry.
One of the arresting cops TC Matt Harvey said: “When I hear reports of someone snorting cocaine and driving a lorry, my initial thoughts are of panic and horror.
“It’s bad enough snorting cocaine driving any vehicle but in particular a van or a large lorry is going to create massive implications if that vehicle is then involved in an accident due to its size.”
They followed the lorry driver who they said they’d seen veering all over the road. “This is ridiculous,” said the driver, when cops pulled him up a second time and once again tested positive for cocaine.
After being allegedly spotted snorting cocaine and testing positive for cocaine twice while driving in the space of a week, he was prosecuted for drug driving and disqualified for one year. He was also ordered to pay fines and costs of more than £200.
Merseyside police caught over 2,000 drug drivers in 2020 and again in 2021. 40-50% of them were ‘at work drivers’ or drivers ‘who would be driving for their work the next day.’
For your own safety in the yards and on the road, you need your company to be rooting out these idiots that are a liability and a disgrace to your industry and your professionalism. Leaving the police to catch them is usually too late to prevent the collisions and the injury or fatality. Call them out!