November 23^rd, marked the start of the annual Road Safety Week led by the charity Brake and supported by road safety professionals up and down the country, but is also a message for every driver, particularly with the Christmas festivities coming up.

The theme for this year’s campaign is ‘Not a drop, not a drag – stay sober, save lives’ which, as the title suggests, reiterates the perennial message about the dangers of drink driving but also emphasises the growing acceptance that there is also a problem with people who take drugs then get behind the wheel.

And the theme resonates particularly at this time of year when enforcement action by the police steps up a gear in the run up to Christmas and New Year celebrations; traditionally a time when more people might be tempted to drink and drive.

The message from Merseyside Police on this issue is clear; it is simply not worth the risk.

If you drive at twice the legal alcohol limit you are at least 30 times more likely to cause a road crash than a driver who hasn’t been drinking. Your reaction times are slower after just one drink. You can’t judge speed or distances accurately, you’re over-confident and you make bad decisions. It’s impossible to calculate exactly how much alcohol is in your system or whether you’re over the drink-drive limit.

And even if you’re lucky enough to not be involved in a collision when over the limit, you still run the risk of being stopped and arrested by the police. Being convicted of a drink-drive offence carries a mandatory, minimum 12-month ban and a substantial fine and gives you a criminal record. You also risk a prison sentence and a £5,000 fine.

Merseyside Police Inspector Kate Cunningham, Head of Wirral’s Roads Policing Unit, said: "Last year, during Wirral’s Christmas Drink-Drive Campaign, nearly 1,000 motorists were stopped and 44 drivers arrested. That’s 44 people too many – no-one should be taking a risk by drink driving, there’s always an alternative.

“This year we will be looking to stop even more motorists to check for drink drive offences and to get the message home that the risk of getting caught drink driving is high. I hope people will behave responsibly over the festive season and enjoy themselves without risking the safety of themselves or others."

Councillor Jean Quinn, Wirral’s Cabinet Member for Streetscene and Transport Services added: “Previous Christmas drink drive campaigns have resulted in a reduction in the number of collisions in Wirral in which drinking was a contributory factor and through this year’s campaign we will be looking to continue to build on this success. But just one collision caused by a drink driver is one that was avoidable.”

These are some details issued by Brake to coincide with Road Safety Week:-

The latest available casualty figures for the whole of the UK show that in 2007 nearly 16,000 people were involved in collisions caused by drink and drug-drivers. A shocking one in six deaths on our roads were caused by drivers over the legal alcohol limit and 478 people were killed by drivers over the drink-drive limit in 2007.

Though women were much less likely than men to cause drink drive crashes nearly a third of the casualties in drink drive crashes were women; often passengers in cars driven by young men.

Driving while under the influence of drugs is something which authorities are also committed to tackling. Though there aren’t any statistics currently available to measure the impact of drug-driving, research carried out by TRL, the transport research agency, suggests that around the same, if not higher, numbers of deaths may be due to illegal drug drivers.

Researchers found 17% of drivers who die in road crashes (almost one in five) have traces of illegal drugs in their system that may have affected their driving. TRL also found that almost 6% of drivers (one in 17 drivers) who die in road crashes have traces of medicinal drugs that may have affected their driving.