Unlicenced, uninsured Merritt man arrested in Kelowna for driving drunk and hiding after crash

KELOWNA – An unlicenced, uninsured 60-year-old Merritt man tried to hide from police who suspect him of drunk driving and leaving the scene of a two-vehicle crash he caused on Harvey Avenue early this morning.

Const. Jesse O’Donaghey says shortly before 3 a.m. today, July 15, a brown Honda Accord travelling east on Harvey Avenue failed to stop for a yellow light and was broadsided by a grey Chevrolet Lumina traveling south on Spall Road.

“The driver of the Chevrolet Lumina immediately fled the crash scene on foot,” O’Donaghey says in an email. “Officers arriving at the scene were flagged down by witnesses who led the investigators to the driver believed to be trying to hide nearby.”

Both occupants of the Accord, an 18-year-old Kelowna man and 21-year-old Kelowna woman, were taken to hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

The 60-year-old man from Merritt was arrested and taken to the Kelowna detachment where he blew in excess of the legal limit of alcohol impairment.

O'Donaghey says the man does not have a valid driver's licence and the vehicle was uninsured.

He is scheduled to appear in court Aug. 25.

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