This year, until December 23, 633 people had been processed for drink-driving in the Dunedin area.
The most common reason people drink and drive is because they think they won't get caught.
They are wrong.
"They think they're going to get away with it and they probably have got away with it before," Sergeant Chris MacAulay, of the Dunedin strategic traffic group, says.
"But they will get caught and it will either be because they've been pulled over by police or because they've crashed and killed somebody."
Sergeant Bruce Martin of the Alexandra-based Rural Drink Drive team said a three-day sting in Queenstown this month netted 18 drink-drivers - one of whom returned a "disgraceful" 1121mcg, and four of whom were recidivist offenders.
Last Tuesday and Wednesday night in Dunedin, seven people were caught allegedly driving over the limit.
A 44-year-old Otago woman was one of them on Tuesday night.
She was crying as she sat in the booze bus parked on Great King St, Dunedin, as she returned a breath-alcohol level of 513mcg.
While she claimed to have had just two small bottles of Lindauer, her level suggested otherwise, Sgt Martin said.
However, she also revealed she had been drinking the night before and had had little to sleep or eat that day.
Despite these figures, Sgt Martin believes attitudes towards drink-driving are improving.
"What you have to remember is we tested 5154 people in Queenstown."
The legal breath-alcohol level in New Zealand is 400 micrograms (mcg) of alcohol per litre of breath, or 80 milligrams (mg) of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood for over-20s.
This level generally allows for far more than one or two social drinks before hitting the limit.
Political debate regarding this level is ongoing.
The Ministry of Transport estimates lowering the limit to 50mg would save between 15 and 33 lives a year and prevent between 320 and 686 injuries annually.
Data shows that as many drivers with a blood-alcohol rate of between 50mg and 80mg died in crashes in the past three years as those who were at, or just over, the limit.
According to Drinkdriving.org, an international drink drive watch dog, there only 65 countries (which include the US and UK) out of 262 which have a level of 80mg.
The remaining 197 have lower, or even nil.
Brazil, Croatia, Afghanistan, Malawi, Nigeria, Samoa and Cuba are among those with a zero tolerance.
Australia's level is between 20mg and 50mg.
Nationally, 113 crashes (34% of all reported crashes) were alcohol-related last year.
In those crashes, 138 people were killed and 2319 injured.
Shelagh Cotter was one of the innocent parties killed by a drunk driver this year.
In October, near Otaki, the 69-year-old was sitting in the driver's seat of her Honda car on a grass verge with the door open, when the car was hit from behind by a Subaru at 11.30am.
She later died in hospital.
The 37-year-old driver of the Subaru has admitted charges of manslaughter and driving with excess breath-alcohol.
He is to be sentenced in February.
In Christchurch, the families of two friends killed by a 22-year-old drunk driver rejected his expressions of remorse when he was jailed for nine years after he ran a red light in August and slammed into the pair's car.
Megan McPherson represents the Sensible Sentencing Trust on impaired driving issues.
Her brother was 28 when he was killed by 68-year-old recidivist drunk driver David Graham Cashman near Rolleston on Mother's Day in 2006.
She is adamant New Zealand's laws for recidivist drink drivers are "wholly inadequate."
"In many ways the law remains the drunk driver's friend.
"Their victims come last", she said in a recent article on the organisation's website.
"New Zealand remains one of the few countries in the first world that continually returns driver's licences to repeat drunk or drugged drivers.
"The penalties for killing, crippling and maiming other road users are shamefully light," she says.
And, she adds, there is little incentive for repeat offenders to change their ways.
"Instead, their sociopathic behaviour kills 50 New Zealanders each year, and they injure a further 700.
"In 2006, about 29,000 people were convicted for drunk-driving.
"This figure is increasing at around 1000 a year."
Sgt MacAulay estimates that in his 14 years with New Zealand Police he has caught about 400 drunk drivers.
He says one of the highest levels he has come across in his 14 years in the force was a woman in Dunedin who blew more than 1400mcg.
Surprisingly, he says, she appeared remarkably sober and was able to hold a coherent conversation.
But this is in stark contrast to others.
"I've opened the door and had people literally fall out of the car.
"The only way they are able to sit up is because they're holding on to the steering wheel."
Sgt Martin says there is no typical drunk driver.
"If you can drink, you can drink-drive."
While these two officers have more than 25 years' service between them, and have seen the best and worst of human nature, both are at a loss to explain what motivates a person to get behind the wheel when they're drunk.
"Most of the time, people aren't in a state to make that decision for themselves," Sgt Martin says.
"They're drunk so they're impaired."
Sgt MacAulay agrees.
"What we say is that if you're going to drink then don't even bring your car.
"Don't have that temptation there.
"Why would you risk it? Why would you risk killing yourself or other road users?
"Drunk drivers kill."
Attempts made by people in Otago and Southland to beat the evidential breath-alcohol machine:
• One man asked to use the toilet. When he had been away for some time, the police officer checked on him and found him eating the crystals from the urinal in the hope of masking the alcohol. Revolting and a waste of time.
• After failing a roadside test, one man appeared to be having trouble blowing into the machine. However, every time he made an attempt to blow, his mouth became covered in white stuff. He was eating the toothpaste from a tube-full.
• One man dropped to the ground in one of the booze buses and started madly doing push-ups. He thought he could sweat the alcohol out.
• A man was asked to follow police to the booze bus for an evidential test. However, in the last dash to fill his stomach and soak up the alcohol he grabbed a meat pack he had just won and started eating the raw meat. Eating's not cheating in this case.
• Another man quickly sculled a bottle of Listerine. Fresh breath perhaps, but no help with his result.
• In another toilet case, a police officer again became concerned when his arrest had taken a long time. The suspect was found drinking Toilet Duck. No germy jims in his rims, but still an illegal breath-alcohol reading.
