WENDY Smith is a walking example of why the police have to keep up the pressure on drink-drivers.She was so drunk that she was physically incapable of giving a breath test to the police after she crashed her car into a bollard after an visit to a pub.

WENDY Smith is a walking example of why the police have to keep up the pressure on drink-drivers.

She was so drunk that she was physically incapable of giving a breath test to the police after she crashed her car into a bollard after an visit to a pub.

Her excuse was particularly lame - she had not planned to drive but it was raining and she did not want to get wet on her way home.

After all the campaigns, after all the warnings about the dangers of drink driving, and after all the publicity received by people who continue to break the law there is still a hard-core of people who choose to get behind the wheel while drunk.

No one knows how much over the limit Smith was when she was interviewed by police - but the fact that one officer said she was more drunk than anyone else he had ever seen tells its own story.

Drink drivers like Smith put their own lives at danger - she was lucky in that her collision with a bollard didn't leave her with serious injuries.

And they also put everyone else on the road at risk. What would have happened if a pedestrian not afraid of the rain had been walking past the bollard at the time of the accident?

Smith will now be off the road for two years - but has avoided more serious punishment. All law-abiding road users will hope that this action will deter other drink-drivers.

But the fear is that those who still get behind the wheel while drunk have become immune to all campaigns and threats - and the only way to end their behaviour is by catching them and banning them from the road one by one.

OVER the last 12 years, since The Evening Star first highlighted problems with the East Anglian Ambulance Trust, the way emergencies are handled has improved significantly.

Now, however, staff are having to improve their response times yet again - timing the eight-minute target will start the minute a call is received, not when the caller gives the address of the emergency.

This change will certainly make achieving the target more of a challenge for the team at the ambulance trust - but as health professionals they will be only too aware of the importance of the “Golden Hour.”

An emergency patient who arrives in hospital within 60 minutes of being injured or taken ill stands a much greater chance of making a full recovery - and achieving that target has to be the main aim of the ambulance service.

DEPUTY Labour leader Harriet Harman is apparently so concerned about life in her south London constituency of Peckham that she wore a stab vest for a visit with police officers.

According to her office this was a “sensible precaution” - as a chef would wear a white hat or a construction worker a hard hat.

This attitude doesn't say much for the state of her government's battle against crime in Peckham, but at least she knows she should not have to wear a stab vest when she visits her Suffolk retreat in a village near Ipswich!