ENJOY your Christmas but don’t over-indulge in the drink and then drive afterwards is the simple message for this year’s Christmas drink drive campaign.
Eye-catching posters in the style of a pub special offers board promote the benefits of designated drivers, late bus and taxi services, and list the penalties for those convicted.
Speaking at the launch at Douglas’s Sea Terminal, Infrastructure Minister David Cretney said: ‘It’s a lovely time of the year, Christmas, but the message is, while enjoying yourselves, make sure you don’t overindulge then drive on the night or on the morning after, otherwise it is a large fine, possible prison, or a 12 month ban, or longer and you may have to retake your driving test.
‘The impact can be greater in the future if you are involved in an accident.
‘So have a good time at Christmas but we will be working with the road traffic unit to make sure the campaign is enforced: we don’t want other people’s Christmas to be ruined.’
Home Affairs Minister Juan Watterson was not at the campaign launch but police inspector Iain MacMillan of the roads policing unit said the island’s police would be working in partnership with the government to identify and arrest drink drivers.
‘The message is clear: don’t drink and drive,’ he said.
‘The constabulary and the judiciary take this very seriously.’
He added the consequences of a conviction could go beyond legal penalties which include a maximum £5,000 fine, but would also result in higher insurance premiums when a driver was back behind the wheel.
‘If you were drunk and injured someone, you have to live with that afterwards,’ he said.
To back up the campaign there are to be extra late buses over the festive period.
Road safety manager for the Department of Infrastructure Gordon Edwards said the safest approach was for drivers to drink nothing: ‘There is no way of measuring how even just one or two drinks will affect yor ability to dirve safely. If you decide to drink and drive you are taking a big risk not just with your own life but with the lives of other innocent motorists and pedestrians. It really isn’t worth it.’
He said drink-drive statistics have shown a downward trend in recent years. At the end of the 2010 campaign there were 20 arrests resulting in 10 drivers being charged. Last year 13 were arrested and nine charged.
