Skip to main content

TISPOL video highlights Finnish crackdown on drink drivers

Traffic police in Finland have been carrying out breath tests across the country in a bid to reduce the around “58 cases a day” of drink-driving detected on the nation’s highways. A recent breath test day operation was held in Mikkeli, southern Finland and filmed by TISPOL (the European Traffic Police Network). Speaking to the TISPOL film crew during the test day, Finland Traffic Police Chief Inspector Jarmo Puustinen said, “We are doing this because we have an average of 21,000 cases monthly where people
December 17, 2013 Read time: 2 mins
Traffic police in Finland have been carrying out breath tests across the country in a bid to reduce the around “58 cases a day” of drink-driving detected on the nation’s highways.

A recent breath test day operation was held in Mikkeli, southern Finland and filmed by 4753 TISPOL (the European Traffic Police Network).

Speaking to the TISPOL film crew during the test day, Finland Traffic Police Chief Inspector Jarmo Puustinen said, “We are doing this because we have an average of 21,000 cases monthly where people are driving under the influence of alcohol. Every day we catch approximately 58 drivers. This is quite a big amount, I would say.”

“We are doing a lot of screening tests and a lot of cases come from traffic [police] control. We also get tips from the public.”

The filmed traffic police tests in Mikkeli were carried out in both directions of a popular 60km/hour highway, in sub-zero degree temperatures. The results of the test day operation are still to be made public.

In Finland the authorities have access to a database of a driver’s income, with fines proportionate to the income of the offender.

Similar anti-drink drive traffic police operations are continuing all across Europe throughout the month of December into early January 2014.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Norway’s massive Rogfast Tunnel project
    December 11, 2018
    The world's longest and deepest road tunnel is underway in western Norway - Adrian Greeman reports
  • Smart road test facility in Virginia
    July 28, 2015
    A test stretch of road in the US is playing a valuable role in developing technology and boosting traffic safety -*Tom Gibson writes Located a short distance from the Virginia Tech campus in the mountains of rural southwest Virginia in the mid-Atlantic region of United States, the Virginia Smart Road looks like a conventional road. But venturing to either end of the 3.5km-long thoroughfare reveals that it actually goes nowhere, at least for now. The result of a plan conceived back in the 1980s, the Vi
  • Eurasphalt & Eurobitume 2016 Congress calls for better communication
    August 5, 2016
    The bitumen industry needs to learn how to communicate with road owners, road users, and communities. This was one of the underlying themes to emerge from the Eurasphalt & Eurobitume 2016 Congress, held in the Czech capital Prague in June. Kristina Smith was there.
  • ERIC 2016: What shape the ‘Smart Road’?
    February 7, 2017
    Optimism about the future of highways worldwide abounded at the inaugural European Road Infrastructure Conference (ERIC) in Leeds, UK Around 500 delegates passed through the varied sessions during the three-day event at the Royal Armouries Museum in the northern English city of Leeds. They came away with many visions of what a motorway and road could look like. But what speakers at the event - co-organised by the Brussels-based European Union Road Federation (ERF) and the UK’s Road Safety Markings Ass