Woman sentenced after crashing her car while drunk on Bruce Highway

A young woman was told she could have easily become the seventh death in a matter of weeks on Mackay Whitsunday region’s roads after she flipped her car while drink-driving.

Cremasco

A young woman was told she could have easily become the seventh death in a matter of weeks on the region’s roads after she flipped her car while drink-driving.

Proserpine Magistrates Court heard Takara Ellie Cremasco was driving her red MG hatchback on the Bruce Highway at Goorganga Plains about 8am on June 28 when she “blacked out” and “woke up in the water”.

The court heard she had been driving “erratically” with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.168.

A witness told police they saw Cremasco cross the centre line “before swerving left and falling from the roadway.”

Police prosecutor Emma Myors said police officers found Cremasco outside her vehicle, and she told officers she had “blacked out” and “woke up in the water”.

Ms Myors said Cremasco needed “some sort of deterrent” as the string of fatals across the Greater Whitsundays had greatly impacted the community as well as first responders.

“Proserpine is a small police station,” she told Acting Magistrate Stephen Byrne.

Cremasco, who was self-represented, told the court she had stopped drinking at 9pm the night before the crash but her medication had affected her blood alcohol concentration.

“I wasn’t drink driving, your Honour, it was my medication,” she said.

She also told the court the weather had been “foggy” on the morning she went behind the wheel.

Mr Byrne told Cremasco she could have “seriously injured someone” that day.

“In your area, it would have been number seven for fatalities, if you had killed someone,” he told her.

Cremasco pleaded guilty to drink driving as well as driving without due care and attention, and driving without a licence as it had been suspended by SPER.

She was disqualified from driving for 12 months and was fined $2350.

Convictions were recorded.

There have been 12 lives lost on Mackay Isaac Whitsunday roads since January 16 this year.