The Government’s hard-hitting drink drive campaign seems to have paid off across the West Midlands – but not in Warwickshire.

The number of accidents over the Christmas and New Year period in the West Midlands was up on the previous year, but the number of drivers who failed breath tests dropped.

The police launched their campaign on 19 December and between then and 2 January there were 987 collisions across the region, which yielded 59 positive breath tests.

The figures for the previous year showed 889 collisions with 69 positive tests. The total number of "injury collisions" this year was 296 compared to 279.

Chief Inspector Bob Jones said:

"The initiative began on 2 December to coincide with the launch of the national initiative against drink driving.

"Around 20,000 vehicles were screened across the region and we had an excellent response from motorists who were very supportive of our actions.

"Each motorist was given a leaflet and we believe our don’t drink and drive message was reinforced by this.

"The high profile road side checks will now continue throughout the year and we will continue to campaign to try to further reduce the instances of drink driving."

The picture in Warwickshire was not so optimistic. Police in the county carried out 137 breath tests between 18 December and 12 January, of which 15 proved positive. There were 78 injury collisions across the holiday period.