Drink Driving Blitz

The SST reports on a drink driving blitz on Friday night which tested 52,000 vehicles and 335 drivers face prosecution.

I was one of those tested, on the on ramp to the Wellington motorway, driving back from a party in Newtown. The police officers were very professional and polite doing a pretty thankless job.

I’d been at the party for around four hours, and had only had three alcoholic drinks (whiskeys) before swapping to fruit juice, so I knew I was well under the limit. But despite that, you always get that nervous clenching feeling in your stomach, until such time as you get a result. Of course it came up negative.

It was the first time I had been breath tested in oh four or five years I think. And that is despite being a regular driver in the evenings.

It got me thinking about how often those who have multiple drink driving convictions, probably actually drive over the limit. If you have just one conviction it might be the only time you were ever over the limit, but what are the chances for multiple convictions.

You see I would estimate that you get breath tested only around one in 200 times you are out driving. So if for example you have four drink driving convictions, that suggests to me that person may have driven over the limit 500 to 1,000 times.

So personally I would actually advocate more resources for more frequent drink driving blitzes. People shouldn’t get away with driving drunk hundreds and hundreds of times.