Thousands Stopped, Few Caught: Cleveland Police’s Christmas Drink-Drive Operation Comes Up Short..
- teessidetoday
- Dec 5, 2025
- 3 min read
A Month of Manpower for Little Return: Cleveland Police’s Christmas 2024 Drink-Driving Campaign Scrutinised as a waste of resources, after delivering very few convictions.
5th December 2025
Cleveland Police has released new data under the Freedom of Information Act that raises serious questions about the effectiveness of its Christmas Drink-Driving Campaigns.
Despite thousands of motorists being stopped throughout December 2024, the proportion of offenders detected suggests that such campaigns may actually be more symbolic than impactful & is said to be raising questions over the manpower & resources being used that could be diverted elsewhere in fighting crime.
Scale of Enforcement Activity
Cleveland Police's Winter 2024 Drink Driving campaign ran for a full month, from the 1st December 2024 to the 1st January 2025, with enforcement taking place twice daily, between 07:00–09:00 and 19:00–21:00, whenever police resources allowed.
Across these sessions its claimed officers carried out: 2,932 breath tests, which led to 4 refusals & 157 arrests for drink/drug driving...
On the surface this appears to be a considerable show of force. However, when analysed in context, the results point to a highly inefficient use of frontline policing resources.
A Very Low Detection Rate
Out of 2,932 motorists breathalysed, just 157 resulted in an arrest for drink or drug driving.
That means, Only 5.3% of all drivers tested were arrested, with 94.7% of police time spent on breath testing producing no enforcement outcome. For every offender identified, its claimed around 19 completely innocent drivers were stopped and tested
When nearly 19 out of 20 drivers pulled over are sober, the deterrence value becomes questionable. It suggests broad, indiscriminate testing rather than intelligence-led policing—an approach unlikely to target actual offenders effectively.
Ancillary Offences: Another Sign of Inefficiency
Police forces often justify road-safety campaigns by arguing that they help catch other law-breaking motorists. The FOI data undermines that claim as well, with just 46 drivers being prosecuted for having No Insurance, 33 with Defective Lights & just 3 Vehicles found to be having worn tyres, meaning that over an entire month worth of roadside checkpoints Just 82 minor vehicle offences were recorded equating to one ancillary offence for every 36 vehicles stopped..
Even expanded out, the collateral detection rate remains strikingly poor, with the data giving rise to a series of legitimate public-interest concerns, one of those being whether the stops are an efficient use of what the police claim by their own admission is 'Limited Resources' ?.
The Public-Relations Campaign vs. Real Policing Outcome
Christmas drink-driving campaigns are traditionally promoted as vital safety interventions. However, Cleveland Police’s own data indicates that the initiative merely generates headlines for the mainstream news rather than delivering upon actual results, with the data revealing that the vast majority of police time was actually spent stopping sober, insured, legally compliant motorists. Meanwhile, the number of genuine offenders identified was only marginally higher than what typical day-to-day policing often identifies without such a resource-heavy blitz.
A Strategy in Need of Rethink
The FOI figures show that Cleveland Police’s 2024 Christmas Drink-Driving Campaign was highly labour-intensive yet produced very limited returns. When fewer than 6% of stops result in detecting an offender, the strategy must be reconsidered.
If Cleveland Police is serious about reducing drink-driving, it needs to move away from mass roadside testing and adopt approaches that are:
more targeted,
more intelligence-driven,
less disruptive to compliant motorists,
and
more cost-effective for the taxpayer.
As it stands, the numbers demonstrate the current model is inefficient, legally questionable as to its effectiveness and, ultimately, as the data shows, completely ineffective at tackling the real problem....
