[Herald DB]
[Herald DB]

A court has acquitted a taxi driver in his 50s charged with drunk driving.

The Busan District Court's Eastern Branch, presided over by Judge Lee Seong, found the driver, identified only as A, not guilty of violating the Road Traffic Act on drunk driving charges, Newsis reported Sunday.

A was charged with driving approximately 1 kilometer from Haeundae-gu to Suyeong-gu in Busan in December last year with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.03% — the minimum threshold for criminal punishment under the law.

A had been drinking at a restaurant before driving to a depot, where he parked his taxi and was resting inside the vehicle around 12:20 p.m. Police responded to a report and administered a breathalyzer test around 12:46 p.m., recording a blood alcohol concentration of 0.03%.

Prosecutors argued that A's blood alcohol level was at or above the 0.03% legal threshold at the time he was driving.

The court said the evidence submitted was insufficient to conclude that A's blood alcohol concentration had reached 0.03% or higher while he was behind the wheel.

The court determined that A had finished drinking before 12:06 p.m. — the time his restaurant payment was recorded — meaning the breathalyzer test was conducted at least 40 minutes after his last drink. On that basis, the court found that his blood alcohol level was still rising at the time of the test, not necessarily at the time of driving.

A told police during the investigation that he had drunk two to three glasses of soju at the restaurant. The court found that, given A's body weight and physical constitution, that amount of alcohol could have produced a blood alcohol concentration below 0.03% at the time he was driving.


choigo@heraldcorp.com