POLICE have hailed the success of their latest drink and drive campaign after the number of positive results dropped.

The Christmas and New Year crackdown saw 5,526 drivers breath-tested across Wiltshire, significantly higher than 2009, but the number positive results was lower than last year.

As part of a national campaign, which began on the December 1 last year and ran for the whole month there were 106 positive tests and five drivers committed an offence by failing to provide a test, representing two per cent of the total tests conducted.

It dropped from 3.3 per cent in last year’s campaign, in which 1,702 tests were conducted.

A total of 592 breath tests were carried out on drivers involved in collisions and 26 tested positive, a 0.4 per cent increase on the four per cent in 2009.

Chief Inspector Ian Copus, the head of Wiltshire Road Policing Unit, said: “This has been a successful campaign with the number of breath tests in Wiltshire increasing by 225 per cent.”