A badly damaged car was parked in Nottingham city centre as part of a police initiative to warn the public about the consequences of drink driving.
The vehicle – crashed earlier in the year by a driver who was subsequently banned from the roads – was the centrepiece of awareness-raising road show events held in Trinity Square between 4 pm and 7 pm on Tuesday and Wednesday last week.
Members of the public had the chance to engage directly with officers and discuss how alcohol could affect their driving performance.
Educational sobriety activity packs were also handed out to passersby – each containing a pair of ‘beer goggles’, a true or false game, and other informative materials for people to read.
Non-evidential breath tests were also taken by members of the public, who could see how differing amounts of alcohol affected them and their likely performance behind the wheel.
Sergeant Jim Carrington, of the Roads Policing Unit, said:
“I’ve been a roads policing officer of a long time now and I’ve lost count of the number of truly catastrophic scenes I have encountered on the roads where people have been killed or seriously injured.
“Seeing those things in person and dealing with the aftermath is always difficult but knowing that incident has been caused by a driver under the influence of drink or drugs really makes me angry.
“Even in those fairly routine incidents where nobody is seriously hurt those consequences can have a massive impact on people’s lives, which is partly why we chose to display this vehicle in the way we have.
“Because speaking to people in person is the best way to get our messages across, and this was a great device to get those people talking.
“Over the two evenings we had a really good response from members of the public – many of them out on nights out ahead of Christmas.
“If we can get through to even one of those people and get them to think again about how they are planning to get home then this will have been worthwhile.”
The team also made a number of arrests on both evenings immediately after leaving the city centre, with four drink and drug drivers pulled over and dealt with.
