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Majority of people would not report drink drive friends

Biggest dilemma is when people received an urgent call to pick up a loved one after having a few drinks
Biggest dilemma is when people received an urgent call to pick up a loved one after having a few drinks Biggest dilemma is when people received an urgent call to pick up a loved one after having a few drinks

ONLY three per cent of people say they would call the police if they saw a friend get behind the wheel when they were clearly over the drink drive limit.

And the survey of AA members found that just two per cent of people would alert police if the person was a family member.

However, 78 per cent of those polled said they would not get in the person's car themselves if they were supposed to be getting a lift home, but would instead take away their friend or relative's keys and call a cab.

The shock statistics come after police revealed that almost 10 people a day were caught driving while unfit on the north's roads in the first week of the PSNI's winter drink drive operation.

Just under half of people (49 per cent) said they would call police if they saw a stranger preparing to drive in an inebriated state.

Most people said that they would encourage drink drivers they spotted late at night to drive slowly or eat more before getting behind the wheel - even if it was a "short journey".

The biggest dilemma came for people asked if they would still drive after a couple of glasses of wine or two pints of beer if they received an urgent call to pick up a loved one.

Nineteen per cent of men and 11 per cent of women said they would under such circumstances.

At the other end of the scale, one in eight people said they would be pretend to have had a drink to avoid driving relatives around at Christmas - with nine per cent going further and actually drinking to dodge lift-giving.