Despite one bad night for drink-driving in Queenstown at the weekend, new laws introduced three months ago appear to be working, police say.
Ten people were caught drink-driving within four hours at a checkpoint on Lake Esplanade on Saturday night and Sunday morning.
Otago rural drink-drive squad head Sergeant Bruce Martin said although disappointing, the number caught was ''quite unusual'' for the resort, and the new lower allowable alcohol band introduced last December was beginning to alter drivers' drinking habits.
''I think on a day-to-day basis at the coal face, I think it has had quite an effect on the average driver.
''Drivers that we speak to make the comment that under the new law, 'I don't know where it sits now' and they're having the one drink instead of the three or four they have used to have.''
Statistics from police national headquarters lend credence to Sgt Martin's comments.
In the wider Queenstown area, in the three months after the new laws came into effect, 33 drivers were prosecuted for having a breath-alcohol level over 400mcg or a blood-alcohol level above 80mg.
That compares with 36 prosecutions during the same period a year earlier.
In the same period, 23 infringement notices were issued to drivers for having a breath-alcohol level in the new lower band of between 251mcg and 400mcg. No notices were issued to drivers for having a blood-alcohol level between 51mg and 80mg.
Last November, then-national road policing manager Superintendent Carey Griffiths said the lower allowable alcohol level would have a ''strong deterrent effect'', and help sustain a decline in drink-driving prosecutions.
Police statistics show that alcohol-related offences by drivers in the Central Otago-Lakes region fell by a third between 2009 and last year.
Sgt Martin said the small decrease in drink-driving prosecutions in Queenstown suggested the lower alcohol band was having the effect intended by the Government.
However, the resort was not the best benchmark for gauging the impact of the new laws because of its high number of visitors.
