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Before Christmas and New Year holiday, the European Traffic Police Network (Tispol) organised an internationally coordinated police action. In a single week of stricter controls that took place between 8 and 14 December in 24 European countries, police officers controlled the psycho-physical condition of 1,009,926 drivers. They found out that as many as 14,185 drivers were driving under the influence of alcohol while 939 drivers were driving under the influence of drugs or psychoactive substances.

As we reported at the time, the Slovenian police officers also joined the December action, and during that week controlled the psycho-physical condition of 4,373 drivers on the Slovenian roads (170 among them were driving under the influence of drugs), thus contributing to the total number of all controlled drivers in Europe.

The record number of over a million of controlled drivers in 2008 (872,110 drivers had been controlled in a similar action in December 2007 - 13,461 had been driving under the influence of alcohol, drugs or psychoactive substances) represents, according to Tispol President Wolgfgang Blindenbacher, an excellent achievement, reflecting a joint effort of all European traffic police forces for the European roads to become safer for all road users. On the other hand it is alarming to see that so many people are still ready to risk not only their own safety but the safety of other road users by driving under the influence of alcohol. Driving under the influence too often has tragic consequences, although the level of awareness among the people is still too low.