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Police from Auckland are being sent north to join local officers in a new crackdown on drink drivers on Northland roads.
The acting road policing manager in Whangarei, Senior Sergeant Janine Attwood-Graham, says Northland's roads will be "saturated" with police during "Operation Home Safe", as they try to catch drivers who are not getting the anti-drink-drive message.
The Auckland officers will be drawn from police in specialised drink-drive units who are likely to bring their own "booze bus" with them.
But police will not say how many Auckland officers will be involved or when they will come north to join the operation.
The out-of-town officers will boost Traffic Alcohol Groups (TAG) in Northland, plus a new rural road policing unit which has alcohol-related offences on secondary and back roads as its primary focus.
The two Northland TAG groups and the rural unit each have six officers targeting drink driving, and Ms Attwood-Graham says offenders in the region will have a high chance of being caught.
Last year, alcohol was a factor in seven of 30 fatal crashes in Northland.
The region, especially in the Far North, has one of the highest drink-driving rates in the country and the Far North also has one of the highest rates of repeat drink drivers.
Ms Attwood-Graham says there have been occasions where people have had too much to drink and then driven just a few hundred metres from licensed premises or a residence to their own homes.
There is also a growing number of people who drink late into the night, go to bed for a few hours and then get up and get caught driving to work next morning while still over the legal limit, she says.
