A Bath Chronicle campaign is helping fight the battle against drink-driving and reduce the number of motorists caught over the limit.

The number of drink drive tests being carried out in the Bath area has risen, but the number of motorists found over the limit has dropped.

The Chronicle’s Don’t Drink and Drive campaign, launched in December, has been credited with helping to put the issue in the spotlight.

It has been reporting as many drink-driving cases as possible in a bid to name and shame the motorists concerned.

Chief Inspector David Sheppard, of the Avon and Somerset force road policing unit, said: “The great majority of people now regard drink-driving as anti-social, although there is a hard core of offenders who will never change.

“Things like the Chronicle campaign are helping to reinforce the message.”

New police figures show 20 per cent of people stopped so far this year failed the test – down from a figure of 27 per cent of those breathalysed over the same period last year.

Officers conducted 525 breath tests in Bath and North East Somerset between January and June in 2000, of which 142 were positive.

Over the same period this year, 538 have been carried out, with the number of people over the limit down to 110.

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