Waikato woman blows over alcohol limit 3 days after partner

Waikato Police working to stem the District's growing road toll are concerned the drink driving messages are being ignored after a couple were processed for excess breath alcohol three days apart.

District Road Policing Manager, Inspector Leo Tooman, said it was particularly disappointing a woman was found driving under the influence of alcohol in Matamata overnight.

"This woman blew over 460mgms; you would have thought she had learned of the risks involved both in terms of her own and other motorists' safety and the likelihood of being caught given her male partner was processed for the same offence in Hamilton three nights ago."

Mr Tooman said three other drivers, two men and another woman were also found driving with excess breath alcohol during the checkpoints while a man in Hamilton caused even more concern early this morning.

"The manner of driving of a motorist on Grey St about 4.20am caught the attention of City staff who pulled over and breathalysed the 24-year-old male driver.

"The man was driving a car with no warrant or registration and returned a breath alcohol reading of 860mgms, with three previous drink driving convictions the man was charged with third or subsequent excess breath alcohol."

Three hours later, about 8.30am, a male salesman driving a company car was stopped in the City and returned a result of 535mgms, the legal adult alcohol limit is 400mgms of alcohol per litre of breath.

"This goes to show intoxicated drivers pose a risk no matter what hour of the day and leads us in to the concern about people potentially celebrating an All Black win on Sunday night partying into the wee small hours of Monday.

"Those people are still going to need to get home and a fair swag of them will be transiting through Waikato roads, given alcohol stays in your system for 12 hours potentially we will have a number of tired, intoxicated drivers sharing the road with returning holiday makers."

So far 42 people have died on Waikato roads this year in 36 crashes, of those crashes 15 involved alcohol including the deaths of four pedestrians while one involved cannabis.

Mr Tooman said looking at the figures it was clear alcohol, drugs and driving were a deadly mix and it was time people realised the danger posed by people driving under the influence.

"We're still got two and a half months to go into the year and already we got five more dead than for the same period in 2010 with the summer holiday period still to come.

"To address the issue we need to ensure drivers and their vehicles are fit to be on our roads, the price we pay if they are not is too great, people need to realise its bottle or throttle, not both."