Troy Walker: Melbourne truckie, 50, admits he drank seven schooners before driving towards Sydney
A Melbourne truckie has admitted he necked seven beers before setting off towards Sydney and it was “pure luck” no one was killed.
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A Melbourne truck driver who necked seven schooners of beer before he set out up the highway towards Sydney has avoided jail time, and admits it was “pure luck” he didn’t kill or injure anyone.
Troy Walker, 50, of Ferntree Gully in Victoria, faced the Goulburn Local Court on Wednesday where Magistrate Geraldine Beattie said she at first planned to send off for a stint behind bars.
According to court documents, was driving up the Hume Hwy from Melbourne in late August as part of his job driving truckloads of caravans across the country.
Walker drank seven schooners of beet before setting out around lunch time on August 31, crossing into NSW just after 5pm and going through Gundagai just before 7pm.
When he turned into Goulburn, Walker crashed his truck into a parked Chrysler, failed to stop and then pulled in for more beers at a local pub, the Astor Hotel.
There, while local police began looking for him after being told about the crash, Walker drank another three schooners of beer before continuing up the Hume Hwy towards Sydney.
Just after 10pm, police officers spotted Walker driving erratically on the Hume Hwy near Marulan, swerving across the road in his defective truck.
When he stopped and spoke to police, Walker was slurring his words and smelt of grog
He blew 0.178, nearly nine times the limit for truckies.
In a letter to the court, Walker said he now realised it was “pure luck” he didn’t injure or kill someone that day.
Ms Beattie said Walker had a problem with drinking that he needed to address.
She fined him $1950 and sentenced him to a community corrections order for 18 months, and disqualified him for a minimum of seven months.
Originally published as Troy Walker: Melbourne truckie, 50, admits he drank seven schooners before driving towards Sydney