One in every 15 motorists breathalysed by police over the festive season was over the limit, almost double the ratio from the year before, Police Scotland has announced.
Assistant Chief Constable Mark Williams said, “I am very disappointed that of the 8,632 drivers stopped and breathalysed during our Festive Road Safety Campaign, we caught 565 people for drink/drug driving offences.
This means that one in every 15 drivers breathalysed by officers were over the limit, compared with one in 28 during the same period in 2017/18.”
An average of 261 drivers were breathalysed every day during the campaign period, which ran from December 1st 2018 to January 2nd, 2019. Of the 565 detected, 23 were caught driving the morning after they had been drinking.
ACC Williams added, “It was very alarming that during this period, 33 motorists were caught more than four times over the limit.” During the campaign Police Scotland made 64 vehicle forfeitures requests to the Procurator Fiscal as a result of drink driving. ACC Williams said he was encouraged by the number of calls received from members of the public providing accurate information about drink drivers, which helped officers to act promptly and stop them.
He added that the reduced number of people being stopped was due to a more targeted approach based on previous information about offending and calls from the public to Police or Crimestoppers.
John graduated from Telford College in 2010 with an HNC in Practical Journalism and since then he worked for the North Edinburgh News, The Southern Reporter, the Irish News Review and The Edinburgh Reporter. In addition he has been published in the Edinburgh Evening News and the Hibernian FC Programme.
