Every drink-driver named in tough new campaign

Every convicted drink-driver will be named and shamed in the Bay of Plenty Times as part of a high-profile campaign to make our roads safer.
The campaign, launched today, comes as latest figures show on average four people have been caught legally drunk at the wheel every day so far this year.
The list published with this article contains the names and details of the 117 drink-drivers convicted in the Tauranga District Court last month. Details include age, occupation and alcohol reading.
Monthly lists of convicted drink-drivers will be published from now on and are supplied by police under the Official Information Act.
The move is part of a Bay of Plenty Times drive to help police tackle the high number of drink-drivers in the Western Bay.
The campaign will include a series of articles looking at the wider issue of drink-driving and the physical, emotional and financial cost on our community.
Bay of Plenty Times editor Scott Inglis said drink-driving was a crime that could affect anyone and the number of offenders being stopped was staggering.
As of yesterday, 915 drink-drivers had been caught on the region's roads this year. Last year, 1861 people were caught.
Alcohol has been a factor in half the eight fatal crashes on Western Bay roads this year.
Acting Senior Sergeant Mark Holmes, acting head of road policing, said police were dealing with some drivers so drunk they fell out of their cars when officers opened the car doors at checkpoints. Drivers had also vomited out the car window or urinated in their seat.
In most crashes caused by a drink-driver, it would not have been the first time they had got behind the wheel after drinking, Mr Holmes said. He said police, including the eight officers on the Western Bay's Traffic Alcohol Group, actively targeted these repeat offenders. Mr Holmes said while it was difficult to pick a "typical drink-driver" the greatest number were male and aged between 15 and 24.
Last year, close to half the drink-drivers, 241 females and 618 males, were in this age group. Mr Holmes acknowledged there was a serious drink-driving problem in the Western Bay and said police were putting a huge amount of staff and time into the problem.
"It's all tied into the New Zealand binge-drinking culture, which is certainly alive and well in the Western Bay," he said.
The Bay of Plenty Times conducted a snap street survey yesterday of 100 men and women - 32 of whom admitted they had driven drunk in the past 15 years.
Tauranga Hanmer Clinic director David Benton said some repeat drink-drivers suffered alcohol-induced brain injury, similar to early onset Alzheimer's.
Sufferers lose their ability to distinguish a good decision from a bad one, experience short-term memory loss, lose the ability to learn new behaviours and persist in behaviours that are unproductive, such as drink-driving.
Mr Benton said he saw a number of men aged between 40 and 60 suffering from this condition. In women, who generally have a lower tolerance to alcohol than men, the onset could occur in their 50s.
WHAT THEY SAY
FROM THE MOUTHS OF OUR DRINK-DRIVERS
•"I'm only just over the limit, can you let me off?"
•"Why aren't you going out there and catching some real criminals?"
•"I've just had one drink."
•"I've got the flu and I just drank two bottles of cough medicine."

SEE SATURDAY'S BAY OF PLENTY TIMES FOR THE COMPLETE LIST OF NAMES