Plea for 'no drink if driving' this summer

AN APPEAL has been made to drivers in the UK not to touch a drop of alcohol if they are going to drive. The call comes as data from the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) shows that one in fifteen drivers breath-tested were over the legal limit.

Road safety charity Brake has made the plea after figures released by ACPO shows that its national anti-drink-drive campaign in June carried out 63,688 breath tests and 4108 proved positive for excess alcohol or refused a breath test.

The number of drivers found to be drink-driving was up 1.3% compared to the same month in 2013, which could be a result of increased breath-testing by police. However, the police also found the number of drink-drivers under the age of 25-year old increased by 7.5% in the same period compared to 2013.

Julie Townsend, Deputy Chief Executive of Brake, said: ‘To stamp out the menace of drink driving, we need the government to introduce a zero-tolerance drink drive limit, rather than asking drivers to do the impossible and guess if they are safe to drive. The law needs to make it crystal clear that drinking any amount of alcohol makes you a danger at the wheel. We also need the government to give greater priority to traffic policing, so we have a suitably strong deterrent against this abhorrent behaviour.

By Press Association reporters