The public has an important part to play in... condemning and stigmatising drinking and driving and reporting offenders to police

Ken Williams, Norfolk Constabulary

The percentage of motorists who tested positive for alcohol following a collision was 7.18%, compared with 6.5% in 1999/2000 and 6% the year before.

Police figures showed that out of 15,064 people tested after a crash, 1,081 were over the limit between 18 December 18 and 2 January.

Ken Williams, chairman of the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) road policing committee and chief constable of Norfolk Constabulary, called for tougher penalties for drivers who flouted the law.

Carnage 'ignored'

Mr Williams said there was a hard core of drivers continuing to drive when drunk, despite Government-sponsored television advertisements using real life footage of accidents.

"The carnage and destruction seen in these adverts appears not to affect these people," he said.

Tougher penalties needed for drink drivers say police

Mr Williams said despite work by the Government, police and road safety partners to reinforce the dangers of drinking and driving, considerable work remained to be done to target persistent offenders who continued to put the lives of other road users at risk.

"The public has an important part to play in the process by condemning and stigmatising drinking and driving and reporting offenders to police," he said.

Gwent had the biggest proportion of "positive" alcohol tests, with 23% of drivers involved in accidents found to be over the limit - 13 out of 56 tested.

This compared with just 1.9% in Cambridgeshire - 11 out of 558, according to figures for all police forces in England and Wales, released by the ACPO.

Trains 'turmoil' cited

Mr Williams said: "The turmoil on the rail network may well have been a factor behind the increase in drink-driving."

The RAC agreed the increase could have been due to more rail passengers taking to their cars.

Edmund King, executive director of the organisation's campaigning arm, the RAC Foundation, said: "The Home Office proposals to increase sentences for the most serious, and repeat, offenders should send out a strong message not to drink and drive."

Drink-drive results

Gwent - 23.2% of those tested were over the limit Suffolk - 17.7% Thames Valley - 17.1% West Mercia - 14.1% City of London - 13.3% Cambridgeshire - 1.9% Cheshire - 2.8% Lancashire - 2.9% Derbyshire - 3% The average figure in England and Wales was 7.1% Source: ACPO

Positive breath tests include instances where a driver refuses or fails to provide a breath test.

In Scotland, 6% of all collisions were found to have involved drink-drivers during the four weeks surveyed, with a total of 199 motorists testing positive.

The police said the figures were better than the summer safety effort, which found 11.5% of all accidents involved drink-drivers.

Assistant chief constable Colin McKerracher, secretary of the Road Policing Committee of the Association of Chief Police Officers (Scotland), said the figures were "encouraging".

A total of 732 collisions resulting in injuries happened on Scotland's roads during the four weeks under scrutiny, a rise of 62% on the summer safety campaign when there were 451 accidents which caused injuries.

But speeding offences dropped by 17% compared to the previous year, which police attribute to the weather preventing drivers from taking to the roads.