KEY POINTS:
Superintendent Dave Cliff, the country's top traffic cop and a police officer for 24 years, does not drink at all if he drives.
"At the end of the day, you must deal with your own conscience," he says.
"If you're behind the wheel of a car, you need to be absolutely maximising the safety of everyone around you and your passengers, and that is best achieved by a sober driver."
The 44-year-old said "in an ideal world" he supported a zero limit, but believed a reduction in the current blood alcohol limit to 50mg was more likely to gain public support.
His strong view on lowering the limit had come from the job, beginning in the 1980s, when up to 900 people a year were killed by drink drivers.
"In those days, working in Auckland on weekend evenings was like working in the killing fields. You'd walk into a hospital ward swimming in blood from the number of people who were hospitalised."
Thankfully, he said, attitudes to drink-driving had hardened since then, but more could still be done to stop repeat offenders who were "more than happy" to maim and kill.
