Fears drink drivers aren’t caught as Police Scotland breathalyse fewer motorists during booze crackdowns

Alarming new figures show 21% fewer drivers were stopped and tested for alcohol in last year’s festive booze blitz than in 2013, with the summer anti-drink-drive campaign seeing a similar fall.

Police sources claim fewer traffic cops under the merged force mean overstretched officers are unable to carry out as many tests as they used to, and some parts of the country are also struggling with a shortage of breathalysers.

Police Scotland insists it has “sufficient numbers” of the devices and defended its record on enforcing the new tougher laws on drink-driving.

But former top cop and Labour’s justice spokesman Graeme Pearson last night linked our revelations to the annual fall in the number of Scots failing breath tests.

He said: “It is little wonder fewer people are being detected for drunk driving. I would have thought frontline officers would have this basic piece of equipment provided as a given.

“The SNP government has a lot to answer for the mess they have made of police reform in pursuit of budget cuts.”

Police Scotland does not keep a record of how many drivers it breathalyses each year, just how many people fail the alcohol test.

However, it does record the number of tests carried out during its summer and festive anti-drink driving initiatives.

During the 2013 festive season a total of 20,646 drivers were tested for alcohol. This dropped to 17,504 in 2014 and last year’s festive season saw 16,225 people breathalysed.

This was despite the major shift in the drink-drive law which saw the limit slashed.

Around one in 35 drivers were found to be over the limit in the 2015 festive season, compared to one in 50 during the previous year’s campaign.

Figures for the summer drink-driving clampdown show a similar drop.

In 2014, Police Scotland said 9,000 drivers were stopped and breathalysed in the first two weeks of its summer bid to curb drink-driving.

The following year, just 7,400 motorists were tested.

One police source said: “The breathalysers are as rare as hen’s teeth in some places and that is before you factor in that all too often officers are too busy to do the tests now.”

Another force source said: “It is an issue, the situation isn’t helped by the fact our traffic guys are now over-stretched, trying to cover huge chunks of the country.

“They are just not breathalysing as many people as they used to.”

It is understood the 2014 law change rendered much of the breathalyser equipment obsolete and not all roadside testing units have been updated or replaced.

Calum Steele, general secretary of the Scottish Police Federation, said: “We would be alarmed if reductions in roadside breath tests were as a consequence of pressures of work.

“We know police officers are working harder than ever before.”

The number of drivers caught over the limit has dropped, from 5,503 in 2014 to 5,204 last year.

Police Scotland’s Superintendent Fraser Candlish said: “We can reassure our communities that there are sufficient numbers of these devices to detect drunk drivers, remove them from causing danger, and keep people safe.”

He added traffic cops had increased the number of motorists they were stopping over the last year. But figures show there are fewer traffic police officers in Police Scotland than under the old eight-force set-up.