A TOP police officer has backed a national survey which called for a lower drink-drive limit.

In the first fortnight of December, North Yorkshire Police arrested 47 motorists on suspicion of drink-driving, and deputy chief constable Tim Madgwick said the Government needed to take action.

Road safety group Brake has released details of a survey, carried out with Direct Line, which showed 74 per cent of people wanted a lower limit in England and Wales, following a similar change in Scotland.

DCC Madgwick said: “I believe England should follow the majority of Europe and Scotland in reducing the drink-drive limit to 50mg of alcohol in 100ml of blood.

“The Government had this recommendation made to them in 2010 via the North report, but they are still stalling on making any changes despite other improvements around testing devices and procedures. The report predicted that a reduction in the limit could save over 40 lives per year in Great Britain – these figures speak for themselves.”

He said the 47 suspected drinkdrive arrests in North Yorkshire was “too high”.

“A number of these have seen offenders arrested the following morning after being over twice the legal limit. This really demonstrates just how careful you need to be. There is no set formula for how alcohol leaves the body and everyone is different. We fully agree with Direct Line and Brake’s recommendations to have no alcohol when you are driving. It is not worth taking that risk.”