Young Groom Wrecks £60k Maserati The Day Before His Wedding

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A young man crashed and completely destroyed a £60,000 Maserati the day before he was due to get married.

The 25-year-old groom-to-be had rented the expensive vehicle for the big day, but apparently couldn’t wait until then to test it out as he allegedly drove it drunk the night before.

The incident took place in Thionville, a commune in the north-eastern French department of Moselle, and resulted in the car catching fire and subsequently being declared a write off.

The young man had been driving the vehicle with three passengers inside before he crashed it into a small wall last Friday, February 7, at around 3.30pm.

The 25-year-old, from Florange, a suburb on the outskirts of Thionville, was driving three of his family members when he crashed the €70,000 (£59,000) Maserati SUV on Rue de Longway, heading in the direction of Val-Marie, as reported by French newspaper Le Republicain Lorrain.

The car caught fire and was removed from the area on Monday, February 10, with the unnamed driver being fined €135 by the police for drink driving. He had consumed alcohol above the authorised limit of 0.5 grams, but less than 0.8 grams.

This €135 fine is a seemingly insignificant figure compared to his deposit on the vehicle, which reportedly totalled ‘thousands of euros’ – money the groom-to-be won’t be seeing anytime soon if the damage inflicted on the car is anything to go by.

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Luckily, nobody was injured, although I wouldn’t be surprised if the bride had a few choice words for him for presumably wasting all of their honeymoon budget.

Because the driver had consumed less than 0.8 grams of alcohol, he wasn’t affected by the strict new drink driving measure introduced in France last year, which means drivers caught with more than 0.8g/l of alcohol in their blood have to pick between either having their licence suspended or having a vehicle ignition breathalyser installed in their cars.

The ignition breathalyser means the car cannot be started unless you first blow into a device installed in the car, known as EADs in French (ethylotest anti-démarrage). These devices require the driver’s alcohol level to be below 0.2 grams per litre of blood in order for the vehicle to start, whereas the legal limit for everyone else is 0.5 g/l.

U.S. Army Europe Office of the Provost Marshal

Not only are drivers required to keep the devices in their cars for at least five years, they also have to pay out of their own pocket for the devices which cost more than €1,000.

Basically, the groom-to-be got off extremely lightly considering he was caught driving irresponsibly. I just wonder if his fiancée let him off as easily?

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Lucy Connolly

A Broadcast Journalism Masters graduate who went on to achieve an NCTJ level 3 Diploma in Journalism, Lucy has done stints at ITV, BBC Inside Out and Key 103. While working as a journalist for UNILAD, Lucy has reported on breaking news stories while also writing features about mental health, cervical screening awareness, and Little Mix (who she is unapologetically obsessed with).