Editorial: Selfish drunk drivers

Drinking and driving is absolutely un-acceptable.Photo/Paul Taylor

It's long been hard to believe people still drink and drive - how could anyone be that selfish and stupid? Especially given the damage drunk drivers have wrought on families, often destroying their own lives along with those of others.

Some of us grew up in a time when the practice wasn't as frowned on as it is today - a bit like smoking.

But you'd have to have arrived in a time machine from 1985 to not know that drinking and driving is absolutely unacceptable.

It's encouraging to see fewer locals are being caught - 570 in the year to June, down from 730 two years earlier - but that's still 11 people a week.

How do you like those odds - every time you or your loved ones head out on the road, could one of those drivers be coming the other way? And those 11 are just the ones who were caught.

We've been criticised for writing about drink drivers appearing in court - as if we're somehow invading their privacy.

Not long ago we received complaints from those whose names appeared in our regular lists of convicted drink drivers.

They didn't want people to know what they'd done.

Tough. It's amazing how offenders think stories about their crimes are somehow worse than the crimes themselves. If you don't want people to know, don't offend in the first place. Don't put innocent people at risk so you can enjoy a drink.

We would love to continue naming all local drink driving offenders, but the practice has been halted by police over privacy concerns.

Maybe the right to privacy, as the law stands, could extend to drink drivers, but how does it stack up against everyone else's right to life?