I didn’t notice anything at the weekend, but the Courier Mail says there was a drink-driving blitz by the police. After administering 50,000 breath tests, one of the peoople caught was a policeman - from the far north of Queensland.

It’s something I warn visitors about - once you leave Brisbane and the Gold coast, you’re entering the ‘wild west’ for driving. The death rates on Queensland’s rural roads is pretty high. Part of the reason for this, I’m sure, is that for many people in rural Queensland - and too many in the urban areas too - driving after a few drinks isn’t considered such a bad thing to do as we’d consider it in Britain.

Funnily enough, Australia has tougher alcohol limits than the UK has. The legal limit here is 0.05 percent while in Britain it’s 0.08 percent. The practical effect is that most men in Britain can get away with drinking a couple of pints of standard-strength beer and drive legally. In Australia, two pints would put you over the limit.

In the case of the of policeman caught at the weekend, he’d have been over the limit in the UK or in Australia - he was measured at 0.1 percent.

Oh, in addition to the hapless police officer, the blitz netted 614 drink drivers, 287 speeding offenders, 83 disqualified or unlicensed drivers and six dangerous driving offences. The Queensland police force is apparently going to stage another weekend blitz ’soon’.