The night after tomorrow the country, along with most of the rest of the world, will ring in the New Year with a good measure of joviality and also with perhaps more than a good few measures of alcohol in their system.

The message is being stressed every year, and it simply cannot be stressed enough: if you have had one too many, do not drive - take a cab or public transport… walk or crawl.

We are lucky to live in a country in which distances are never excessively long. In fact, a half-hour suffices for just about any journey between any two points on the island. So as such taxis are not cripplingly costly and public transport is expected to run smoothly on New Year’s Eve.

It is really as simple as that. The potential ramifications are simply not worth a gamble which, if you win, awards you with the prize of having your car outside your front door on New Year’s Day. But, if you lose that gamble, the cost can be very dear indeed, and a complete write-off of an automobile could be the least of those costs.

Malta, along with the UK, are the two countries with the highest legal blood alcohol limits, at 80mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood, and calls are continuously being made to lower the threshold. Ireland did so recently, when it dropped the threshold from 80mg - Malta’s limit - to 50mg.

In so doing, Ireland introduced a number of novel concepts that bear consideration. Learner, novice and professional drivers in Ireland face even harsher restrictions, with their limit now being set at 20mg, meaning that a single pint of beer, a glass of wine or a single measure of spirits could push many motorists over the legal limit. Malta at present makes no such distinction between categories of drivers and their blood alcohol content levels.

A recent report drawn up by the British medical regulator, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Guidelines (NICE), advised that legal limits for drinking and driving in the UK should be reduced from 80mg to 50mg.

A single alcoholic drink, the report found, triples a driver’s risk of dying in a vehicle crash, and a small beer or glass of wine can increase a driver’s blood-alcohol level by more than half the legal limit, said the report commissioned by the British government.

The study found that even at the one-drink level, the chances of a fatal accident are three times higher than with a driver who has drunk no alcohol at all. That is half the risk of the 80mg drink-drive limit, which increases the chances of a fatal crash by at least six times. In drivers who are just over the limit, at up to 100mg blood alcohol level, the risk is 11 times higher. The exponential increase in the danger for drivers who have drunk a relatively small amount of alcohol is spelt out in the report.

The effects are particularly acute in younger people, who, according to the NICE report, are “less experienced drivers, are immature and have a lower tolerance to alcohol than older people”.

Young people aged between 18 and 25 are more likely to die in road accidents than from any other cause, according to the report. And which age group will be doing the most drinking at Malta’s parties come New Year’s Eve?

If you’ve had too much, please keep your car keys in your pocket and find any other means to get yourself, your friends and your loved ones home… safely. Take a cab, not a life, on New Year’s Eve.