Over the next two weeks, the country, along with much of the rest world, will celebrate Christmas and 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 stressed year after 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. Get yourself home any way you can but if inebriated, do not get behind the wheel and risk taking a life.

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. Therefore, taxis are not cripplingly costly and public transport has, despite the bad press, been greatly improved.

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 the morning after. But, if you lose that gamble, the cost can be very expensive indeed, and a complete write-off of an automobile could be the least of those costs.

Nor would it be a bad idea for the police to actively breathalyse any driver seen driving out of line over this festive season – replete as it is with parties, staff functions and family gatherings, which as we know are rather conducive to the intake of alcohol in more copious proportions than usual.

The law currently stipulates that the police can employ breathalyser tests only when there is a reasonable suspicion that the person is driving under the influence of alcohol but that should still leave plenty of scope to pull suspect drivers over to be tested.

Malta, along with the UK, are the two EU countries with the highest legal blood alcohol limits – at 80mgs of alcohol per decilitre of blood − and calls are continuously being made to lower the threshold. Agenzija Sedqa, in conjunction with Toyota importers Michael Debono Limited, recently launched a festive season billboard campaign against drunk-driving calling once again for a revision of the limit and for it to be lowered to 50mgs alcohol per decilitre.

The issue has been on the cards for years now and one sincerely wonders why it has not been done yet, when research shows that blood alcohol content levels over 50mgs drastically decrease a driver’s ability to drive safely.  How many more lives will it take before proper enforcement and a more appropriate limit are introduced to this country?

A recent report drawn up by the British medical regulator, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, advised that legal limits for drinking and driving in the UK should be reduced from 80mg to 50mg, as Sedqa has been campaigning for.

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 in a driver who has drunk no alcohol at all. That is roughly 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 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 this festive season?

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, this festive season.