Have you seen “Bloody Mary” recently? It’s not your usual vodka-laced tomato juice, but a young woman covered in blood. She is part of the Traffic Police’s latest campaign against drink driving that employs a play on words the partying crowd is familiar with, to shock the public into facing up to the realities of the effects of drink driving.

Ain’t no ring around the roses

By using roadblocks to seal off all alternative routes out of major drinking areas, there is no escape for culprits, and it’s only a matter of when they will be nabbed. These roadblocks in a ring-fence targeted at drink drivers are over and above regular roadblocks.

The Traffic Police has carried out six ring-fencing operations since January this year and this tactic has been credited for an 8 per cent drop in drink-driving arrests this year. So far, 3,552 drink drivers were arrested in 2008, down from 4,010 in 2007.

Alcohol and driving don’t mix. Here’s how alcohol impairs your driving skills:

Slower reaction time

Alcohol slows the rate of information-processing by the brain, even in small quantities. You may be slower to react when something unexpected happens.

Poorer judgment

The process of interpreting complex information can be adversely affected by alcohol. You may have problems judging distances and the speed of your car and that of other vehicles.

Impaired vision

Alcohol-impaired drivers tend to focus on the road straight ahead and fail to look out for unexpected emergencies in the periphery. Someone who has been drinking may also require more time to interpret road signs or respond to a traffic signal. Night vision and colour perception are impaired too.

Poorer coordination

Driving requires the ability to keep a vehicle in the proper lane and direction, and monitor the driving environment for vital information, such as traffic signals, pedestrians and other vehicles. Alcohol reduces the capacity to perform concurrent tasks, especially in an emergency.

False sense of confidence

You may experience “Dutch courage” and take risks you normally wouldn’t.

Drink-driving penalties

Under the Road Traffic Act, a person can be convicted of drink driving in two instances.

1) The driver is found to have more than the legal limit of 35 microgrammes (ug) of alcohol per 100 millitres of breath, or more than 80 ug of alcohol per 100 millitres of blood. It doesn’t matter whether the driver has perfect control of the vehicle when caught.

2) The alcohol level is under the legal limit, but the driver does not have proper control of the vehicle as a result of alcoholic intoxication.

First conviction: Fine of between $1,000 and $5,000 or six months’ imprisonment.

Second conviction: Fine of between $3,000 and $10,000 or imprisonment for a term of up to one year.

Repeated conviction: Drink driver faces enhanced punishment of up to three times the penalty, a maximum $30,000 fine and three years’ imprisonment.

Offenders causing death or serious injury can also be caned up to six strokes. In addition, convicted offenders will be disqualified from driving for at least a year, even if they didn’t cause any accidents. Driving licences suspended for more than a year will be automatically revoked.