SCOTS motorists are being warned of the hazards of drink driving as Police Scotland gear up their annual festive crackdown.
Final 12 months police carried out 3,049 roadside checks in December – with 722 drivers detected for drink or drug offences.
The failure charge of 24% signifies that practically one in 4 drivers had been discovered to be over the restrict.
This compares with 2,965 checks and 628 failures in 2021 – so detections had been up by 15%.
The most recent information from Transport Scotland estimates that 210 folks had been injured in accidents the place a driver was over the authorized restrict in 2021, together with 10 deaths.
Separate crime figures present there have been 3,555 convictions in Scotland for driving ‘below the affect’ (DUI) in 2021-22.
Hunter Abbott from private breathalyser agency AlcoSense commented: “This was a pointy rise on the 12 months earlier than (2,718 folks convicted) though that 12 months was severely impacted by the Covid pandemic with court docket closures and fewer site visitors on the street.”
Evaluation of crime information by AlcoSense exhibits that Glasgow is the DUI hotspot of Scotland with 942 offences in 2022-23, larger than wherever else within the nation and up by a 3rd over the previous decade.
Subsequent worst had been North Lanarkshire (820 DUI offences), Aberdeen & Aberdeenshire (650), Highland (574) and the Metropolis of Edinburgh (499).
The Scottish islands had been discovered on the backside of the desk with Orkney (23) and Shetland (28) one of the best behaved amongst Scots.
The Scottish drink drive restrict was lowered in December 2014 from 80mg of alcohol in 100ml of blood (0.80‰ BAC) to 50mg (0.50‰ BAC).
Penalties for breaking the legislation in Scotland can embrace a 12-month driving ban, a £5,000 high-quality, as much as six months in jail and a felony file.
Inflicting loss of life by careless driving by drink may end up in a 14 12 months jail sentence.
Mr Abbot stated: “Police all the time step up roadside breath testing throughout the Christmas and Hogmanay get together season.
“When you drink 4 pints of medium-strong beer or 4 massive glasses of wine, it could actually take so long as 14 hours for the alcohol to clear your system.
“Even with simply 10mg per 100ml of alcohol in your blood (one fifth of the authorized restrict in Scotland) you’re 37% extra more likely to be concerned in a deadly accident than when utterly sober.
“The principles are easy, in the event you’ve been ingesting within the night, don’t drive.
“When you’re driving the subsequent day, take a look at your self to ensure you’re away from alcohol from the night time earlier than as one in 5 drink drive convictions are within the morning.”
