Police in New Zealand are seeking an urgent order to revoke a woman’s driving licence after she was found slumped over her steering wheel having driven, apparently asleep, from her home in Hamilton to a former home in the beachside town of Mount Maunganui – a distance of 190 miles!
Police said they received an emergency call just after midnight Wednesday (August 14) from a friend concerned the woman had gone out in her car after taking sleeping medication.
Told that the woman had been out sleep-driving 10 months previously and had a fondness for the beach, police ordered patrol cars to keep a lookout for her silver hatchback and began tracking her via her mobile phone. They said data showed the phone was on and she was sending texts as she drove from her home to Mount Maunganui via Auckland, a distance of almost 300 kilometres.
After five hours on the road, the woman was found asleep in her car, in the driveway of a house she used to live in, with no recollection of her journey.
Senior police sergeant David Litton said: “We have sought an urgent order forbidding her to drive and to seek medical advice on her suitability to remain holding her driver’s licence.”
