Drunks beware - city gets booze bus

By Beck Vass
Police have escalated their fight against drink drivers with the Bay's first roadside booze bus, which will be the centrepiece of an intense Christmas-New Year operation starting next week.
Police say the booze bus - which was used for the first time in a short operation in Tauranga yesterday afternoon - will double the chances of drink drivers getting caught.
A new police Traffic Alcohol Group comprising six officers began work this week to target drink-driving - one of the biggest problems on Western Bay roads.
Traffic was stopped on Takitimu Drive for about an hour from 1.30pm yesterday when the Tauranga and Rotorua TAG teams tested drivers. No one was caught driving drunk.
The officer in charge of traffic in the Western Bay, Senior Sergeant Ian Campion, told the Bay of Plenty Times previous booze bus blitzes required the Rotorua bus and its staff to travel to Tauranga.
However, he warned motorists that the Rotorua team would continue to work here in conjunction with the new team and police officers would also run random alcohol checkpoints around the city.
Next week police begin Operation Profile - the Christmas and New Year road safety and drink-driving crackdown that aims to stop drunks driving before they cause crashes and deaths.
The booze bus - complete with B BUS 1 number plates - is fully self-sufficient, with a kitchen that includes a coffee machine and microwave.
It even has a "privacy room" where drink-drivers can call lawyers and arrange rides home.
Police can breath-test, arrest, photograph and fingerprint people and even grant them bail from inside the bus.
Tauranga TAG team Acting Sergeant Trinity Morrison said police would work randomly around the city.
The Bay of Plenty police district, which comprises the Western and Eastern Bays, Rotorua and Taupo now has two booze buses, reflecting the high number of drink-drivers found.
Acting road policing manager Inspector Ed Van Den Broek said the district had a "very poor record" for alcohol-related crashes.
"For us to get this second booze bus is excellent. It just gives us an extra tool for road policing to target drink drivers and send a really strong message for people to not drink and drive."
Acting Western Bay police area commander Inspector Bob Burns said that with the extra police presence, a flow-on effect on other crimes could occur as people were deterred from committing other crimes.
"It's a large tool for crime reduction. It's quite interesting if you actually do some things in the central business district, you reduce the calls for service.
"It's using a number of options available to reduce the effects of violence or alcohol consumption and driving is just one of them."
Western Bay drink drive convictions:
2005 - 1184
2006 - 1329
Female (2005) - 275 (23.2 per cent)
Female (2006) - 333 (25.1 per cent)
Male (2005) - 906 (76.6 per cent)
Male (2006) - 991(74.6 per cent)
* The Bay's highest incidence of drink driving for the past two years came in the 31-50 years age group
* This year that group is followed closely by drink drivers in the 17- 20 age group
* More men than women are caught drink driving in the Western Bay
* 19 per cent of crashes in the Western Bay are alcohol-related.