Before moving in to our annual New Year's Eve message, hearty congratulations are in order for each and every individual and business who participated on any level in this year's record breaking edition of l-Istrina.

It is truly remarkable that the Maltese people have outdone themselves once again this year and that their generosity has broken even last year's seemingly unsurpassable record of donations. This shows just how united we can be as a country, despite our sometimes bitter political divides, and how, when united, we can overcome just about any challenge placed before us.

Now it is time for one last show of unity for the year - to not put your fellow citizens at risk by drunk driving as next week Malta, along with much of the rest 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 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. Or even better, plan taking a taxi home before you leave the door or, short of that, appoint a designated driver to see you and your loved ones home on what is in effect at once the most jovial night of the year and also the most dangerous for driving.

Recent research has placed Malta as the third safest country in which to drive a vehicle in 193 countries - just behind Tajikistan and the Maldives - with an average of three deaths a year per 100,000 people, compared with the global average of 18 per 100,000 people.

But having said that, and despite the comparative safety of driving in Malta, absolutely no one's life should be taken because a driver is over the limit.

We are also 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 over recent years.

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.

The police force has been out on the streets this festive season, looking out for drunk drivers and administering breathalyser tests and rightly so. But it would not be a bad idea for the police to even more actively breathalyse any driver seen driving out of line during 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.

But along such lines, it must be pointed out that Malta and the UK have the EU's highest allowable alcohol blood content levels - at 80mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood.

This month, the Scottish government introduced a lower limit of 50mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood - leaving just England and Wales, and Malta, with the EU record 80mg limit.

Calls for Malta to adjust the limit downward to 50mg have been ongoing for years now, but the appeals, for some unknown reason, have consistently fallen on deaf ears as far as successive governments are concerned.

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 reduce 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 report drawn up a few years back 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. 

And the reasons for that call apply to Malta as much as they apply to the UK:  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?

The 'it couldn't happen to me' syndrome does not apply to drunk driving - ever. But the fact of the matter is that just a little Dutch courage goes a long way to making one feel invincible and quite frankly the cost of finding out you were wrong is a cost that no one wants to pay.

Just ask anyone who has lost a loved one to or has had a loved one injured by a drunk driver what they think of the issue and you will surely be converted on the spot.

Drink driving deaths and injuries are cruel and needless, ending or ruining lives and leaving traumatised families to pick up the pieces.

If you're driving home from celebrations this festive season, it's vital you take your responsibility for people's safety seriously, and stay completely off alcohol - it's a fact that even small amounts of alcohol or drugs increase your risk of crashing exponentially.

So 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. Instead of 'one for the road', let's make it 'none for the road this New Year".

Take a cab, not a life, this festive season.