Organisation: Department for Transport
Date uploaded: 7th January 2014
Date published/launched: December 2013
The 2013 THINK! Christmas drink drive campaign warned that millions of people risk losing their job or face difficulty getting work if they drink and drive.
The campaign highlighted the snowball effect a drink drive conviction can have on future job prospects.
The DfT estimates that up to one million people work in jobs they could lose as a result of a drink-drive conviction, while in a survey almost a third (27%) of respondents said they would have to give up their job because they rely on a car to get to work.
The THINK! campaign points out that people who drive as part of their job are particularly vulnerable but someone with a conviction could also be denied access to millions more jobs which are eligible for criminal records checks. These jobs include professional driving jobs, teachers, care workers and jobs in banks and finance.
Any employer can ask to see unspent criminal convictions and research shows that three-quarters of employers admit to taking a criminal conviction into account during the recruitment process.
In a seperate element of the campaign, the consequences of drinking too much the night before driving were highlighted in a new THINK! film launched online on 20 December (see link below).
The video features a sober-looking man who talks about how his body is still over the limit the day after an evening of drinking. The man mimes to his own drunken voice that he had recorded the night before.
The THINK! team says the commercial is the first to deliberately use a drunk presenter. It is intended to be both funny and thought-provoking and ends on the message: “To your body, the morning after is still the night before.”
The film reminds viewers that a fifth of drink drive accidents occur in the morning.
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