Damon launches drink-drive campaign

Motorists were urged to have "none for the road" yesterday as the Government launched a pounds 2m Christmas crackdown on drink-driving.

Centrepiece of the campaign - launched by Gavin Strang, the transport minister, and former motor racing world champion Damon Hill - is a new television commercial which shows a group of young people wrongly believing that they can stay in control of cars after drinking. The television commercial will be backed by a radio and cinema campaign.

This could be the last Christmas drink-drive campaign conducted under the existing legal blood-alcohol limits. The Government said last week that it was holding public consultations on a proposed change that would cut the legal limit from 80mg of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood to 50mg, putting most drivers "over the limit" if they drank more than a pint.

The new limit would be backed by a major expansion of the rehabilitation scheme for drink-drivers. Baroness Hayman, minister for road safety, said:"The signs are that these [rehabilitation] courses are proving to be a real success in reducing re-offending rates."