Police checked 1,224 drivers during a two-day operation, finding one in 50 to be over the legal alcohol limit

One in 50 drivers failed a police breathalyser test in a drink-driving sting in the New Territories this week.

Roadblocks on highways on New Territories South tested 1,224 drivers on 16 and 17 July at around midnight, finding 24 of them – some 2% – failed the test.

The drivers, 20 men and four women aged between 22 and 58, were arrested on suspicion of drinking and driving.

Two other drivers were found to be already wanted by the police and were arrested.

Such operations against drink-driving are rare: police arrested just 253 drivers for drink-driving and 31 for drug-driving in the first six months of this year, down 19% and 48% on the same period in 2021 respectively.

A police officer smashed a Tesla Y into a bakery in May this year, later testing to be over five times the alcohol limit. Inset: the driver struggles with emergency crews as they attempt to move him to a stretcher.

One of those 253 arrested for drink-driving was an off-duty policeman, who, in May this year drove his Tesla into a shop, injuring a pedestrian. The  police officer was found to be five times over the legal alcohol limit.

But while enforcement remains low, research in Hong Kong shows that while drink-driving accounted for a relatively small proportion of crashes, the average killed-and-seriously-injured (KSI) rate for those crashes was higher than overall.