Drink driving penalties - Hit-and-miss conviction system fatal

IT is a national disgrace that despite the fact that drink driving is one of the major killers on our roads, as many as three out of every 10 motorists arrested for the offence last year eluded the rigours of the law.

Effectively, almost one-third of those drivers - as many as 3,905 of them - who were callously indifferent to the lives and safety of other road users escaped with impunity.

Inevitably, they will reoffend and the fact that they thwarted the law compounds the belief that there is a certain ambivalence, or tolerance, towards getting behind a driving wheel while under the influence of alcohol.