A drink driver crashed and dumped his car in the middle of a road, a Portslade delivery driver was caught after taking cocaine and another driver was arrested in Southwick, also after taking drugs.
The three men are among the latest to have been banned as a result of the annual Christmas crackdown on drink and drug driving by Sussex Police.
The force said: “Mudassar Malik, 35, a deliveryman, of Eastbrook Road, Portslade, was arrested in Steyning Road, Shoreham, on Wednesday 24 December and charged with driving with 263 micrograms of cocaine per litre of blood.”
The legal limit is 10 micrograms per litre of blood.
Malik appeared at Crawley Magistrates’ Court on Monday 8 June when he was banned from driving for 12 months.
The delivery driver was fined £133 and ordered to pay £85 costs and a £53 victim surcharge, making £271 in total.
Fast food worker Stephen Gray has been banned and fined after he crashed and abandoned his car in the middle of the road less than a mile from his home.
Gray, 41, of St Wilfrid’s Road, Burgess Hill, was arrested in nearby Crescent Road, Burgess Hill, on Tuesday 2 December and charged with driving with 78 micrograms of alcohol per 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit is 35 micrograms.
He was also charged with “failing to stop after a road traffic collision and causing a vehicle to be left in a dangerous position”, police said.
At Brighton Magistrates’ Court on Monday 6 July, he was banned from driving for 20 months and given a 12-month community order, requiring him to carry out 100 hours of unpaid work.
He was also ordered to pay £650 costs and a £114 victim surcharge, making £764 in total.
Luiz De Oliveira, 48, unemployed, of Dakin Close, Crawley, was arrested on the A27 at Southwick on Wednesday 10 December and charged with driving with 77 micrograms of benzoylecgonine per litre of blood.
Benzoylecgonine remains in the body after taking cocaine. The legal limit is 50 micrograms.
De Oliveira was given an 18-month driving ban at Worthing Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday 30 June and ordered to cary out 50 hours of unpaid work as part of a 12-month community order.
He was also ordered to pay £85 costs and a £114 victim surcharge, making £199 in all.
The men were among the 112 people to have been convicted so far after 279 arrests were made during the annual Christmas crackdown which ran from Monday 1 December to Thursday 1 January.
Sussex Police added: “In keeping with previous years, we will continue to publicly identify anyone convicted of drink or drug driving as part of this campaign to raise awareness of the issue and to act as a deterrent to others from committing the same offence.”
Why is there any ‘legal limit’ for having cocaine in your bloodstream? Cocaine is an illegal drug, and therefore any amount in your bloodstream is illegal. The law makes no sense.
Probably, because if the limit was zero, it would invite a legal challenge. I think there has to be an actual number, because there is no real zero (like, to how many decimal points?)
Various chemicals exist naturally in the human body, the “legal limit” takes that into account before any action is taken about “sniffin” or however they take it