Thames Valley Police launches its annual Christmas drink drive campaign on Saturday.
The month-long campaign is part of a national crackdown, supported by the Department for Transport (DfT) and the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), aimed at reducing the numbers of drink drivers on our roads.
The campaign aims to convince all drivers that a drink drive conviction has the potential to ruin their life by highlighting a mixture of the legal and personal consequences. It will be particularly aimed at 17-29 year-old men as research shows they are more likely to drive when over the legal limit or when unsure if they're over the legal limit. Figures also show young men are more likely to become casualties or lose their lives as a result of drink driving.
All drivers who provide a positive breath test or face a field impairment test to determine whether they have been using drugs, refuse to provide or fail to provide, face losing their licence for at least 12 months. They could go to prison for six months or pay a fine of up to £5,000.
During last year’s campaign nearly 2,000 drivers were breathalysed or given field impairment tests and 251 drivers (13 per cent of those tested) provided a positive result. This was an increase on the previous year (Christmas 2005), where only one in 11 drivers provided positive samples, compared to one in eight last Christmas.
Superintendent Mick Doyle of Thames Valley Police Roads Policing Department said: “We must reduce the number of people who are killed or seriously injured on our roads. We can only achieve this with the help of drivers acting responsibly. Provisional figures show that 117 people have lost their lives on the roads of Thames Valley so far this year.
“Research carried out by the DfT under their Think! campaign shows that young men are really not getting the message over drink driving and we hope that by warning them of the consequences they will face if they are caught, we can make them realise drink or drug driving is always a bad idea.
”People who drink and drive put themselves, their loved ones and other road-users at risk. If you know someone is drinking and driving, report them to police or call the Crimestoppers charity anonymously on 0800 555 111.
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