Bay's drink-drive rate falling

The summer's drink-driving campaign resulted in fewer offenders being caught. Photo/File

THE number of Western Bay drink-driving convictions is dropping, with fewer young drivers caught boozed behind the wheel.

Ministry of Justice figures released to the Bay of Plenty Times under the Official Information Act show more than 1600 people were convicted for driving drunk in the Western Bay in the year to June - a drop on the previous two years.

Of these, more than a quarter recorded their third or subsequent conviction, also representing a reduction.

A man in his 20s was convicted in Tauranga last year for the region's highest breath-alcohol reading of 1725 micrograms of alcohol per litre of breath - more than four times the legal limit.

Western Bay of Plenty road policing manager Senior Sergeant Ian Campion said young people were "leading the way" in dropping drink-driving rates.

"Whilst they are still over represented, they have had the biggest reduction in the Western Bay of Plenty of any age group.

"People are very quick to blame young people about what's going wrong."

While local drivers aged 15-19 represented more than 27 per cent of drink drivers in 2008, that figure had dropped to 15 per cent last year, Mr Campion said.

"[Young people] are to be congratulated."

Overall, local people were making better decisions about drink driving.

Education and enforcement, coupled with "significant" media attention, had helped publicise the problem, he said.

But serial offenders had a long way to go.

"Recidivist drink drivers are the ones least likely to change their behaviour, but there are programmes available for them."

The summer's drink-driving campaigns had resulted in fewer offenders being caught, but exact statistics were not yet available.

Last month a 14-year-old girl who had been drinking led police on a 19km pursuit through Tauranga, which only ended when she hit road spikes laid by police.

A few days later, 23-year-old Papamoa woman Sarah Koroi pleaded guilty in Tauranga District Court to drink driving after losing control of her car and crashing through a house in November. She was found to have an excess breath alcohol reading of 590mcg.

The number of drink-driving convictions nationwide fell over the past three years from 27,518 to 23,377.

But recidivist drink-driver numbers remained consistent.

Automobile Association (AA) motoring affairs general manager Mike Noon said the drop was largely thanks to the zero tolerance alcohol policy for drivers under the age of 20.

"We are making improvements but we're still not there ... the percentage of drivers we've caught before is going up."

The "catch and release" approach of punishing repeat offenders and ignoring the root cause was not working, he said.

The AA wanted to see more rehabilitation programmes for recidivist drink drivers, and more interlock devices to prevent them getting behind the wheel unless sober.

The Government plans to reduce the legal blood alcohol limit from 80 to 50 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood for drivers aged 20 and over.

The lower threshold means the average male will be over the limit after four to six 330ml beers drunk over two hours - instead of six to nine under the present limit. APNZ