Motorist avoids jail after crashing into cyclist while six times over drink drive limit and drinking vodka from 7Up bottle

A motorist with an “extraordinarily high” drink drive reading after downing vodka from a 7Up bottle has avoided jail for crashing into a cyclist, instead receiving a five-year driving ban and a €1,500 fine after pleading guilty to drunk and careless driving.

Rebecca Griffith, 34, of Blackheath Park, Dublin, was heading toward Artane in her Opel Astra when she struck the 34-year-old cyclist riding in the bus/cycle lane from behind on the city’s Malahide Road. The impact sent him flying over the handlebars and ended up on the road.

Another cyclist assisted him in getting up. He suffered bruising and a concussion from the collision and was taken to the hospital in an ambulance, where he underwent a CAT scan and received a tetanus injection.

The injuries caused the cyclist to miss work for two weeks, and his expenses were €700. In a victim impact statement, he said he was now nervous while cycling, felt vulnerable on the roads, and suffered from occasional flashbacks, while also suffering from ongoing pain and discomfort.

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Griffiths, who works as an environmental scientist at Trinity College, had finished work at 3pm on 17 August 2023, the day of the incident and was visiting her sister. After a row broke out, Griffith purchased a bottle of vodka and poured it into a 7Up bottle, which she drank from while behind the wheel of her car.

Police officers immediately noticed in the aftermath of the crash that Griffith had consumed alcohol; the sample she provided revealed a reading of 407mg of alcohol per 100ml of urine — over six times the legal limit of 67mg in Ireland.

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DublinLive reports that the defence counsel Emmett Nolan told Judge Grainne Malone his client was lucky not to have caused serious injury and was facing a more severe charge. The defence acknowledged the drink-drive reading was quite “extraordinarily high”, and it had been obvious to gardaí in the aftermath that she had consumed alcohol.

Mr Nolan stressed that although his client was “highly educated and travelled”, she suffered from a bad alcohol addiction and had been drinking the night before the incident. On the day of the collision, she had been working, surveying at Trinity College, and finished at 3 o’clock.

A letter from her doctor confirmed she was on antidepressant medication. Counsel explained that the driver’s drinking problem began several years ago when she worked in a well-known late-night eatery in Dublin, and staff would have drinks after closing time.

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The court heard she used alcohol as a coping mechanism, but her family hoped that she would abstain from drinking and engage with services to help her deal with the issue. Pleading for leniency, the barrister had asked the court to treat it as an aberration by a young woman who made a significant error in her life but otherwise had a lot going for her.

Griffith had no previous convictions and was going to counselling. Ahead of sentencing, a probation report was ordered along with a request for information about the compensation awarded in the civil proceedings.

At a previous hearing in October, the driver also issued an unreserved apology through her barrister and in a letter brought to court, and offered the cyclist €2,500 as a “token of remorse”.