A Mearns councillor says he has “no sympathy” for the drink drivers caught in the latest crackdown by Grampian Police.
Statistics released following a four-week sting across the region showed an increase in the number of motorists stopped with excess alcohol in their bloodstream, in comparison with last year.
In the wake of the hike, the force’s head of road policing sent a stark warning to offenders “we will hunt you out and enforce the law.”
Over the last two years 139 drivers have been snared by traffic police as part of the regular summer initiative, including 68 in 2010 and 71 last month.
Over three days during the June operation 16 people, 13 men and three women, were detected and reported to the procurator fiscal.
Of those charged, eight of the men fell within the young driver category of 17-25 years a group which features disproportionately in terms of their level of involvement in serious injury and fatal road traffic collisions.
All of the women were aged over 25 and one of the men stopped was riding a motorcycle.
Mearns councillor Graeme Clark said the dangerous, narrow countryside roads in the area made the actions of drink-drivers even more deplorable.
“These figures just go to show the problem we have in the Mearns during the summer months, when people are going to the likes of barbecues and think they can just jump in the car and get home,” he said.
“People don’t tend to associate driving during the day with getting stopped by the police but that doesn’t mean they should be drinking. We do have some really hazardous drivers in Aberdeenshire and all the way down the east coast, including Angus. Some people just seem to take chances all the time.’No excuse'”I have no sympathy for any of them we have all seen the fatalities on our roads and there is no excuse for drink-driving or driving irresponsibly.”
In addition to the drink-driving, two of the incidents involved vehicles which had been reported stolen.
Chief Inspector Ian Wallace, head of road policing for Grampian Police, said June was an important month in terms of enforcing drink-driving legislation.
“While the national drink-drive campaign lasted for two weeks, we purposely operated ours locally for the entire month,” he said. “We made it clear we would be looking closely for drink-drive offences and they weren’t difficult to find.
“In one weekend alone, we dealt with 16 people across the force area who chose to drink and drive, which is almost a quarter of the entire month’s total.
“That’s 16 people who decided to ignore our message about drink-driving and potentially placed many others at risk through their actions.”
Grampian Police are targeting 30 potential drink-drivers who have been reported to them across the north-east and the force contact centre receives tip-offs from the public regularly.
Chief Inspector Wallace said the most alarming aspect continues to be the involvement of young drivers.
“In one weekend we saw 50% of the drink-drive offences committed by young drivers,” he said. “They should be among the most aware of the anti-drink drive message, given that we have spoken with so many secondary school pupils in recent years.
“Drinking and driving has led to the death of a number of local road users in recent years and this is not an issue we’re going to give up on. To the contrary, we’ll keep talking and spreading the message to those who want to listen.”