Mr Brown said the catches highlighted the time over-the-limit alcohol could remain "in the system", which was shown in another test about 3pm. "They were still borderline," he said.
But there was a sign even later that some warnings were being heeded. A near blanket testing of all drivers leaving the New Year's Day Races in Hastings did not turn up any driving illegally. "In fact, 99 per cent blew no alcohol whatsoever," said Sergeant Kris Shadbolt.
About 15 staff were involved in yesterday morning's operation, which focused mainly on people travelling to and from beaches, with eight of those who failed being stopped in Waimarama Rd, east of Havelock North. Of the others, two were in Napier and two in Central Hawke's Bay.
The 20 deaths in the Hawke's Bay area and northern Wairarapa last year were part of a provisional nationwide toll of 297 that has disappointed police, who had hoped to lower the toll further from the half-century low of 253 recorded last year.
Figures compiled by the New Zealand Transport Agency and Hawke's Bay Today for the newspaper's circulation area, extending from the Wairoa district in the north to the Dannevirke-based Tararua district in the south, show that, of the 20 deaths, 10 were car, van or ute drivers, three were passengers, and five were motorcyclists.
The others were a 2-year-old boy hit by a car in a KFC carpark in Napier and a man who apparently leapt out of an ambulance into the path of another vehicle.
The tolls are vast improvements on the highs of more than 60 deaths in the area in the 1970s, when the record nationwide toll of 873 was hit in 1973.
The most dramatic cuts have come in the past 25 years, from 1990 when New Zealand's 150th anniversary year toll was 729, and Hawke's Bay's was 55.
Features of the Hawke's Bay toll last year were that an abnormally high quarter of the 20 deaths were motorcyclists and that all six female victims - five drivers and one motorcyclist - died as a result of crashes involving two or more vehicles.
Figures showed a high degree of compliance on the "open road", although six of the deaths happened on State Highway 2.
There were, however, none on the region's section of SH5, from its intersection with SH2 north of Bay View to Tarawera.
Mr Brown attends most of the fatal crash scenes in Hawke's Bay, or at least reviews the files, and had noticed a higher proportion of head-on or other two-vehicle crashes, and pointed to driver inattention and vehicles crossing the centre line as an issue. "When you look at where they happened and how they happened, you shake your head," he said.
