M56 drink-driving arrest rate revealed

DRINK drivers have been risking their lives and others’ on the M56 motorway through Cheshire.

Freedom Of Information data obtained by the Weekly News and released by Cheshire police showed that there have been seven arrests in the first eight months of this year involving motorists above the limit anywhere between junction 14 Hapsford and 6 Manchester Airport.

Four of those were in August, while the others were in January, March and July.

Three arrests were on stretches close to Runcorn, with one each between junctions 12 Clifton and 14 Helsby, 12 Clifton and 11 Preston Brook, and 11 Preston Brook and 10 Stretton.

The other four were all on the Warrington to Manchester Airport carriageways, between junctions 10 Stretton and 6 Manchester Airport.

Breath tests of the motorists logged alcohol levels of between 44 and 107 micrograms of alcohol per 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit is 35. Driving or attempting to drive while over the limit can result in six months in prison, an unlimited fine and a driving ban of up to a year or three years if convicted twice in 10 years.

Anyone convicted of causing death by careless driving can face up to 14 years in prison.

Brake, the road safety charity, has warned that drink-driving remains a ‘scourge’ on Britain’s highways with one in eight deaths on the nation’s highways involving a motorist over the limit.

Its ‘Driving For Zero’ campaign has called for more steps to tackle forms of impaired motoring whether due to alcohol, drugs or poor vision and ill health. Brake’s proposals include a lowering of the drink drive limit, compulsory eye tests for drivers, and ‘rigorous enforcement’.

Joshua Harris, Brake’s director of campaigns, said: “Despite decades of action and innumerably Government campaigns, drink-driving is still a scourge on our roads.

“That is why Brake is calling for a zero-tolerance approach.

“Zero-tolerance provides absolute clarity that no amount of alcohol is safe when driving and only through this clearcut approach can we truly make progress and rid our roads of the menace of drink-driving.”