A drink driving crackdown found fewer offenders on the roads of Sussex.

The month-long operation on the county’s roads saw 4,229 people breathalysed, and 161 arrested.

Sussex Police said the rate of failed breath tests had fallen compared with the same campaign last year.

Chief Inspector Di Roskilly, of the force’s road policing unit, welcomed the fall in a statement but said: “In just one month, 161 people have been arrested and that is too many people who clearly blatantly disregard the law and are prepared to gamble with their lives and the lives of others.

Focus efforts

“We will continue to focus our efforts on removing them from the roads of Sussex before they cause harm.

“Aside from the social and financial aspects of a drinkdriving charge – loss of job, a substantial fine, the stigma of a criminal conviction, imprisonment – drunken drivers take lives and ruin others with devastating consequences for themselves, their families and the friends and families of their victims.”

In 2010’s operation, 3,298 people were stopped and 152 people arrested, or 4.6%.

This year the figures showed 3.8% of those tested were over the limit.

Of those arrested in June, 30 had been involved in crashes.

Police, who repeatedly warned of the dangers of morning-after drink driving, said 12 arrests were made between 6am and 10am.

In one case Anna Holdway, 23, of Cuckoo Drive, Heathfield, crashed into a road sign on the A267 at Hellingly at 6.20am.

She was arrested on Monday, June 20, and was later banned from driving for 17 months and ordered to pay £250 after admitting drink driving at Eastbourne Magistrates’ Court.

Sergeant Dan Pitcher, also of the road policing unit, said: “This incident reinforces the drink-drive message, Miss Holdway had been drinking the night before.

“She woke up in the morning and considered herself fit to drive but this was clearly not the case.”