12:00a.m. 21st August 2008

| By Amy Remeikis

One-third of Sunshine Coast drivers admit to drink-driving, with many also taking an alternative route home to avoid random breath tests.

The latest AAMI Crash Index has revealed in stark black and white figures what our police officers have been telling for months.

There is a group of Sunshine Coast drivers who have no problem getting behind the wheel when they know they are over the legal blood-alcohol limit of 0.05.

The AAMI survey claims 31% of Coast motorists admit to driving when they know they are over the limit, with 16% admitting taking a different route home after drinking to avoid the booze bus.

It was a similar story last year.

The 2007 AAMI Crash Index revealed 36% of Sunshine Coast drivers admitted driving while over the limit, with one in six of those drink-drivers attempting to escape a conviction by taking the back way home.

The survey interviewed 2503 drivers across the nation.

For those who don’t believe in surveys, Sunshine Coast police figures give even more food for thought.

In the past 11 days, 100 drink-drivers have been caught on Sunshine Coast roads, bringing the yearly total to 1650.

That works out to about seven a day since the start of the year.

AAMI corporate affairs manager Mike Sopinski said it was “worrying” the number of Sunshine Coast drivers who knowingly persist in illegal and dangerous driving behaviour.

“This sort of willingness to get behind the wheel, when all the signs say you shouldn’t, suggests some drivers are either ignorant of the law or just plain stupid,” he said.

The North Coast regional traffic coordinator, acting Inspector Peter Flanders, just wishes it would stop.

“When you look at the amount of drink-drivers that we intercept on a weekly basis, the numbers are quite unfathomable,” he said.

“There is also no doubt that there are drink-drivers out there who take the option of trying to avoid us by taking a different route home.

“Not for one second do they care about their passengers, or their family, or the person they could kill. All they care about is not getting caught for drink-driving.”

The AAMI index also found 54% of Sunshine Coast car crashes were caused by driver inattention.

Act Insp Flanders said those little things drivers do while not paying attention on the road add up.

“Things like unsafe lane changes or rolling through a stop sign do cause crashes,” he said.

“It’s those little things that people think are only little mistakes that don’t mean much. But they do.”