FOR a while it seemed we had almost won the battle against drink-driving. There was a time, long ago, when boozy motorists thought nothing of jumping behind the wheel to drive home.

A succession of hard-hitting public safety campaigns seemed to have changed all that. A generation of motorists grew up who genuinely understood that drink driving was dangerous, and wrong.

Suddenly, the tide seems to have turned again. The number of drink-drivers caught in North Yorkshire soared by two thirds last year, to 1,800. That means that somewhere on the county's 6,000 miles of road, an average of five people were caught every day driving while over the limit.

That is a shocking figure, particularly in view of the terrifying road death statistics we reported earlier this week. In the first three months of the year, 20 people died in road accidents - four times the number a year ago.

We are not suggesting those deaths were necessarily caused by alcohol. But one thing is for sure: get behind the wheel drunk, and you put both your own and others' lives at risk.

Equally worrying are national figures which reveal a big increase in drink-driving offences by young motorists. Almost a quarter of all drink-drivers are now aged between 17 and 24.

It may be that a new generation of young people are growing up who have to be taught all over again the dangers of drinking and driving.

If that is so, North Yorkshire Police's proposed new clampdown - part of a Europe-wide crackdown running from Monday to June 10 - could not be better timed.