Icon on bottle in bid to catch the drinker's eye

By REBECCA WALSH and ANGELA GREGORY

Public confusion over what constitutes a standard alcoholic drink has prompted the Alcohol Advisory Council to design an icon telling people at a glance how many drinks are in a bottle.

The law already requires every container of alcohol to include written information about how many standard drinks it contains, but ALAC chief executive Dr Mike MacAvoy says there is much misunderstanding about the strength of different products.

The icons (pictured right), a tumbler showing the number of standard drinks inside, should start appearing on bottles in the New Year.

Their use will be up to individual companies. Although some say the icons will add no information, the Land Transport Safety Authority backs them. It says the icon is more likely than the existing wording to catch a drinker's eye.

Dr MacAvoy said use of the icon was part of a wider education campaign to be launched next year.

Meanwhile, police are already cranking up their holiday season drink-drive blitz, meaning drinking drivers would do well to pay heed to their consumption.

Checkpoints and booze buses will be out in greater numbers, but the police will say little more.

Superintendent Steve Fitzgerald, the police national road safety manager, said all the booze buses would be operating during the next two months, because it was a peak time for drinking.

Mr Fitzgerald said that during the past year drink-drive policing had reached the point that each of the nation's 12 police districts had a compulsory breath-test team. They operated differently in cities and country areas, he said.

In a city high visibility was best as a deterrent, and in rural areas booze buses tried to be covert to catch people unawares.



In the North Island, the police presence on State Highway 1 would be increased and highway patrol rosters had been made to provide maximum coverage at high-volume times around cities and holiday spots.

In the South Island, speed and alcohol would be targeted along with the dangers of fatigue.