Be festive but don't drink and drive, OK

It's too easy to say you didn't realise you were over the legal limit after the fact.

DELIGHT is how I would describe feeling on hearing the alcohol limit for drivers was being dropped by nearly half.

Those who drink and drive are the lowest of the low in my view - they leave families devastated, children without parents and nothing but pain in the wake of their stupidity.

Our family has experienced this first hand when a drink-driver not only crashed into my aunt's car but left the scene of the accident without offering any assistance on that fatal night on a rural Bay of Plenty road. He was found cowering in a calf pen as her life slipped away from the injuries she received when he slammed into her car.

She died at 26, the mother of a 3-year-old child who had already lost his father in a fishing accident.

You can say the driver will live with the memory of what he has done but I'm not sure his pain is anything close to that of my cousin's life-long inner trauma.

He and many other Kiwi children have grown up orphans caused by the thoughtless actions of someone who gets behind the wheel tanked up.

There is no excuse for this behaviour.

It's too easy to say you didn't realise you were over the legal limit after the fact.

But you need to know before you get in that car and turn the key; not once you have slammed your car into an innocent motorist.

How much makes you a risk on the road? It's easy to misjudge - one person may find three drinks puts them over the legal limit while another might find one does the trick.

The answer isn't that difficult to find really though.

While an adult driver is allowed to knock back a "couple" of glasses or cans of beer, in our house, if you have more than one drink then you're in the passenger's seat.

Personally, for those who can't judge or say no after one drink but are driving, then maybe the best thing to do is not drive at all.

There is only one sure way to be 100 per cent clear you are safe to drive and that's not to get behind the wheel after consuming one drink.

Give presents this festive season not a funeral notification.