Man punished 14 times for drunk driving gets prison after two more offenses in one day

A man in his 60s who had already been punished 14 times for drunk driving has been sentenced to prison after getting behind the wheel while heavily intoxicated once again.

Judge Jeong Ji-eun of the Changwon District Court's Criminal Division 2 sentenced the man, identified only as A, to two years and six months in prison on charges of drunk driving under the Road Traffic Act.

A was indicted on charges of driving approximately 58 kilometers — from a road in Danyang-gun, North Chungcheong Province, to the northbound lane of the Central Expressway in Punggi-eup, Yeongju, North Gyeongsang Province — with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.155 percent last December.

Just three hours after being caught, A allegedly drove another roughly 8 kilometers along a road in Danyang-gun with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.081 percent.

An investigation found that A had a prior record of 14 drunk driving convictions — seven fines, three suspended prison sentences and four terms of actual imprisonment.

"When he was driving drunk on the expressway, he was going the wrong way, posing a significant risk of an accident," the court said in explaining the sentence. "Given that he drove drunk again on the very day he was caught, the risk of reoffending is high, making a prison term unavoidable."