Last update - 00:00 21/08/2007
Court rejects driver's leniency appeal because he 'didn't feel drunk'
By Anat Roeh, Haaretz Correspondent
Tel Aviv District Court rejected an appeal on Sunday to reduce the sentence of a drunk driver who argued he didn't feel incapacitated after drinking three vodkas and a beer.
The judge denied the accused drivers' petition to reduce a two-year suspension of his license, saying that although the driver's appeal put in question the legal definition of drunkenness, the courts were not authorized to redetermine the standard.
He said that the law set a bar beyond which a driver is considered "drunk," and that exceeding carried an automatic penalty of license suspension for at least two years.
The driver argued that while his record included 30 prior traffic offenses, he had never been convicted of drunk driving in 24 years on the road.
He claimed he was in full control of his faculties despite having consumed more alcohol than the legal limit on this occasion, and said this was sufficient cause to reduce the minimum sentence prescribed by the law.
The judge noted that a court of law must assume that the traffic law is not comprised of impossible decrees by which drivers cannot abide, and does not punish innocent drivers.