Sunday 1 August 2010

Drunken driving up

A summer crackdown on drink and drug driving in the Thames Valley has seen an increase in the number of drivers flouting the law.

More than 2,300 drivers were breath-tested by police and 232 provided positive results.

The figure is 7% up on last year, when 190 out of 2,721 drivers breathalysed were caught over the limit.

Meanwhile

A drunken school bus driver who sliced the roof off his double-decker shortly after dropping off children is facing jail.

Gurdeep Singh Sagoo, 49, of Middlesex, was almost three times over the drink-drive limit when he drove into a low bridge.

After he was arrested, Sagoo told police he had forgotten he was driving a two-tier bus and thought it was a single decker.

But the good news for all drunken drivers is that all UK governments are on their side. The Home Office has traditionally resisted

pressure from the European Commission to bring in random breath tests for drivers.

President of the European Traffic Police Network, Ad Hellemons, told BBC Radio 5 Live: "The vast majority of member states already carry out random breath tests.

"We are aware that the UK is not happy about this but at the end of the day we are talking about making our roads safer.

"We can't understand why governments would want to protect drink drivers.

I can.

As a zoologist I can confidently say it’s because the House of Commons is full of invertebrates and inebriates.