#drinkORdrive this Christmas

This festive period we’re encouraging drivers to avoid drinking anything alcoholic if they’re planning to drive.

Our campaign, which runs from Wednesday 1st December to News Year's Day, highlights the ways in which you can avoid drink driving during the party season by planning ahead.

You may think that having one or two drinks doesn’t matter but even a small amount of alcohol can affect your ability to drive safely so the best advice is to make alternative travel arrangements or avoid alcohol completely if you are driving.

Alcohol makes your reactions much slower and makes processing information more difficult, so when driving this can impact on decision making and reactions times, putting you, your passengers and other road users at risk.

If you’re planning a night out, remember to book your taxi, organise your lift or look up bus and train times before you leave for your night out. If you’ve had a big night out you may still be over the limit the next day, so you’re best to make alternative travel arrangements if you need to go somewhere first thing.

The #drinkORdrive campaign supports on-going work as part of our Operation Lightning, which aims to reduce the number of deaths and serious injuries on the roads of Staffordshire and to disrupt and deter criminals from using the road network. Officers from our roads policing unit will be working with partners including Staffordshire Safer Roads Partnership

If you have any information about people who are drink or drug driving, please contact us with as much information as possible so they can be investigated. You can report them online, by direct messaging us on Facebook or Twitter, or by calling 101. Alternatively, if you wish to remain anonymous, you can contact the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111. If there is an immediate risk to the public always call 999.