The message that drinking and driving do not mix seems to have hit home in recent years. STEVEN SHUKOR examines the measures being used by police to keep our roads safe.

This year's anti-drink driving campaign on television is a sinister slide show of mangled cars accompanied by Silent Night and the message: "Drink driving is one Christmas tradition we can all do without."

Each year the government renews it's drink driving campaign to drive home the message that alcohol and the road don't mix.

The television campaign has stuck to the same formula used last year after a poll found that 90 per cent of those questioned said they remembered the ad.

Images of severed limbs and horrific carnage seem to have less of an impact than the idea of Christmas ruined by alcohol. But the clearest indication that the 25 year campaign is working is that it is now socially unacceptable to drink and drive.

Before 1976 there were nearly 2,000 people killed each year as a result of drink driving. By 2000 that number had dropped to 520.

But there is no room for complacency and this year officers of the Met Police's traffic division will be once again on high alert for offenders.

Between December 18 and January 2, two campaigns will be running, one for all Met police officers and another for the Met's individual traffic divisions.

Officers from Hampton traffic division, which covers South West London, will be focusing their attention on the area's accident hotspots.

These include a one-mile radius around Ewell Road and Red Lion Road in Kingston, Upper Richmond Road West in Richmond, the High Street in Colliers Wood, Merton, and St Dunstan's Hill in Cheam, Sutton.

PC Mick King, has been in traffic for 24 years and has seen how attitudes to drink driving have evolved.

"I remember when everybody used to drink and drive. Nowadays it's a lot better.

"It's become socially unacceptable. The mindset of the public seems to have changed somewhat whereas before people used to boast about drink driving."

He said each officer had their own technique for identifying potential offenders.

"If the vehicle swerves inside the lane or encroaches on

a white line that could suggest someone is driving under the influence.

"In normal circumstances drivers just don't do that. Usually I will stop the vehicle if the driver makes two minor driving mistakes."

The penalties for being caught range from three months in jail, a £2,500 fine and a disqualification for being above the legal limit to 10 years imprisonment and two years driving ban for causing death by careless driving while under the influence of drink or drugs.

The current legal limit is 35 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath but don't assume you can monitor your limit.

PC King said everyone has different limits of alcohol and we must not assume one pint to be okay.

He said: "It is possible for one pint to push you over the limit.

"The only way to know you are in fact legal is not to drink alcohol at all."

December 28, 2001 12:00