A LORRY driver has been slammed for putting lives at risk after he admitted completing 400 miles in his HGV while over the limit.

Alfred Taylor, 63, of Accrington, downed a "fair amount" of whisky before starting his shift at 9pm last Thursday and completed two 200-mile round trips to Birmingham.

He was still nearly three times the drink drive limit when his Mercedes articulated lorry left Liverpool Road, Burnley, and crashed into a house and a lamp post at 10.50am on Friday.

Burnley magistrates warned him he could go to jail after hearing how he told police he had not drunk alcohol for 24 hours before the crash.

Today residents in Liverpool Road and motoring experts said it was amazing that he had not killed or seriously injured anyone.

And a spokeswoman for the national Freight Transport Association said it was about to publish guidelines on drink and drugs in the workplace to prevent anything similar happening again.

Taylor, of Manchester Road, Accrington, admitted driving with excess alcohol on December 5 and was given an interim ban. His case was adjourned until January 5 for a pre-sentence report.

Andy Robinson, prosecuting, said Taylor told police the accident happened after he dropped a cigarette, bent down to pick it up and swerved to avoid a bus.

The prosecutor said the defendant's tachograph was seized and showed he had started work at 9pm the previous night.

Geoff Ireland, defending, said Taylor, who had a clean driving licence, would now no longer be able to work as a lorry driver and would have to sign on.

He said that for the last five weeks he had been working, through an agency, for Nightfreight GB Ltd in Burnley.

He said he would pick up his lorry at Rosegrove and make two trips, totalling around 400 miles, to near Birmingham every night.

Mr Ireland said the defendant "perhaps drinks a little more than he should."

He said he had finished his previous shift at 8am the day before but when he got home he would have a drink. On the day before the accident he had a "fair amount," of whisky, then went to bed.

Mr Ireland added: "If the level of alcohol was so high at 10.50am, what would it have been earlier in the night ? He had driven all that way without any problems."

The solicitor added the vehicle could have caused a great deal of damage and Taylor, whose wife was a pharmacy assistant, was ashamed and concerned by his appearance.

The owner of the house involved in the accident is believed to have been away on business. But after the hearing, Susan Jenkinson, 48, of Liverpool Road, said: "It is lucky that this didn't happen a couple of hours earlier because there are children walking up and down this road to school. It could have caused mayhem."

Edmund King from motoring group the RAC Foundation said: "I think there is a hard core of drink-drivers who drink way above the limit and many of those hard core drink-drivers have got serious problems.

"Those people who are way above the limit should go through a rehabilitation course that assesses their drinking as well as their driving, and if they don't go through that we feel they should never get their licence back."

A spokeswoman for the Freight Transport Association said: "We are recommending that companies ask members of staff to sign up every day to say they have not had a drink and they are not over the limit."

A spokesman for Nightfreight, Greenbrook Road, Burnley, said: "We are aware that an incident took place involving an agency driver not employed by Nightfreight. We are currently carrying out an investigation as we do with all road traffic incidents."