A U.K. mother is behind bars after driving while impaired at high speed into a roundabout with her 19-month-old son in the back seat.
The collision was so violent that her compact sport utility vehicle was launched nearly 5 metres into the air, landing on its roof before grinding to a stop 50 metres up the road.
A truck driver’s dashboard camera captured the nearly fatal incident on Dec. 12 of last year. Tania Chikwature, 32, of Coventry, is seen speeding past the truck in a no-passing zone, nearly clipping its bumper, before the collision with a crash barrier sends the vehicle flying through the air on the A605 in Peterborough.
The unidentified truck driver witness, who told police he has 15 years’ experience as an emergency service worker, said he did not expect anyone to walk away from the crash.
“I could see a car on the wrong side of the double white lines overtaking me at speed and I thought, ‘What are you doing?’” he said in a statement to police. “The car was completely out of control and went straight into the roundabout, straight on, where it launched into the air. I remember thinking as it went in the air, ‘They're not going to make it.’”
The video shows the car colliding mid-air with a tree planted in the centre of the roundabout before crashing to the ground on the other side.
“There was a man pulling a young child from the wreckage, the child was crying and was very shocked,” the truck driver told police. “The car was totally destroyed and on its roof, the only other occupant was crumpled with her feet in the driver's side and her body leaning back between the two front seats.”
Police and ambulance attended the scene where Chikwature refused to provide a routine breath sample. A bottle of vodka was reportedly found inside the vehicle.
Police said a blood sample collected nearly five hours later in hospital showed 156 milligrams of alcohol in Chikwature's blood. The legal limit is 80 milligrams. Investigators at a forensic laboratory estimate she had 246 milligrams of alcohol in her blood at the time of the crash.
Chikwature appeared in a Peterborough Magistrates’ Court on Monday. She was sentenced 26 weeks for dangerous driving, and 12 weeks for drinking and driving, to be served concurrently. She was also banned from driving for three years, and ordered to pay a £115 ($190) fine. She pleaded guilty to both charges at a hearing last month.
“Chikwature showed complete disregard for the safety and welfare of her child and other road users in her manner of driving. It is pure luck that nobody was killed that day,” said PC David Tudman, from the Beds, Cambs and Herts Road Policing Unit in a statement.
“At no point did she ask after the welfare of the child or refer to him,” said the witness truck driver. “In the 32 years I have been driving, this is one of the most dangerous pieces of driving I have ever witnessed. I see stuff on the road every day, but nothing this bad.”
