NAGOYA -- About 80 percent of those caught driving while drunk on Aichi roads last month were aware that tougher penalties had been imposed since September, but almost 40 percent of them felt confident cops wouldn't catch them anyway, an Aichi Prefectural Police study showed Saturday.

Aichi police are furious at the lack of morals drivers in the prefecture even though the Road Traffic Law was toughened significantly to try and crack down on delinquent drivers just over two months ago.

"We want families to tell drinkers not to drive if they are going to down a few," a police spokesman said.

With the year-end party season approaching and bringing more opportunities to consume alcohol with it, police said they plan to strengthen their assault on drunken drivers.

Police said they interviewed 102 people picked up for drunken driving in Aichi Prefecture from Oct. 12 to 28 and found that 78.4 percent were aware that the fine for driving drunk had doubled from 500,000 yen to 1 million yen when the law's revisions came into force on Sept. 1.

Of those aware of the changes, 36.3 percent said they decided to drive anyway because they were confident they wouldn't get caught, another 17.6 percent said they felt they had sobered up by the time they got behind the wheel and a further 8.8 percent said they drove because they needed to use their vehicle the following day.

Police said that of the drunken drivers, 53.9 percent had been drinking at pubs, while another 13.7 percent imbibed in their homes before going out. Most people caught driving drunk had drunk alone, at 58.8 percent, but another 28.4 percent had been boozing with friends and 5.9 percent with work colleagues.

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drunk driving
written by crystal , March 02, 2008

I think that drunk driving is not right at all. You are not just putting your own life at risk but everyone elses that is around. But i think that you should tell someone not to drive even if the have had only one drink. Everyones body reacts different to drinking. If you have anything to drink you should have someone that has had NOTHING to drink drive.
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