EVERY year police think of new ways of trying to hammer home the stark message that drink-driving wrecks lives.

Today with the Lancashire force’s summer campaign under way a front-line officer tells of the horrific accidents he has had to deal with after people got behind the wheel under the influence of alcohol.

Graphically detailing the carnage caused by drink-drivers is a good way of shocking the rest of us into not behaving irresponsibly.

But so too is the worry that if you are caught on the wrong side of a breath test you WILL lose your licence.

Lancashire police must be embarrassed today by criticisms levelled at them by District Judge Peter Ward at Blackburn Magistrates Court.

He said it almost beggared belief that they failed to give Aaron John Pendlebury a blood test after a breath test was over the limit.

The accused himself admitted he should have had one.

There will be an inquiry into why police “shot themselves in the foot.”

And so there should be because effective prosecution is as vital a weapon as shock tactics in deterring would-be drink drivers.