Defence lawyer Larry Mussenden yesterday questioned Police's methods for arresting suspected drunk drivers, saying Police actions to stop suspected drunk drivers is based on "flimsy'' reasons.

Mr. Mussenden was speaking in response to recent revelations that 386 people were arrested last year for suspicion of impaired driving.

Of that number, 227 failed the alcho-analyser test, 95 people refused the test and 64 people passed, having below 80 milligrams of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood.

"In my view there is too great a margin of error,'' Mr. Mussenden said. "You have to look at the criteria that they are using to be picking up these people.

"All of the officers use the same criteria, `unsteady on his feet', `her breath smelled strongly of alcohol', `his speech was slurred and his eyes were glazed','' he continued.

"That's all the Police ever say. They can't give you any other details than that,'' he added. "Funnily enough they can't give you any more than those four stock phrases.'' Mr. Mussenden explained there was another phrase `the driver was swerving about' but he said all of those reasons to request a breath sample are "not good enough'' to base their suspicions on.

"That's wrong in law in my view, and they are using the wrong test, but I'm not going to tell them what the correct one is,'' he explained with a smile.

"They'll have to find out for themselves.'' Also of concern to Mr. Mussenden are the 95 people who refused to take the breath test last year.

"What percentage is that, 20 percent?,'' he asked. "What percentage of them were not impaired but were charged and treated as if they were? We'll probably never know.

"The reasonable person probably feels aggrieved when Police stop them on what they consider the flimsiest of circumstances. The Police will demand a breath sample and the person refuses on the basis they feel the request is on flimsy grounds.

"But they end up suffering the same penalty (as someone who has failed the test),'' Mr. Mussenden explained. "That can't be right.'' Mr. Mussenden sees the 64 out of 386 people who passed the breath sample as a percentage that is too high and bolsters his argument that the suspicion that Police use to demand a sample are not enough.

"Twenty percent of the people they stop go on to pass after a trip to Hamilton Police station in a Police car is just too high a percentage,'' Mr.

Mussenden said.

"I suggest Police need some more training and a complete rethink on how they approach this kind of offence,'' he continued. "Yes, it's clear that there are people who are over the limit and rightly so they are penalised.

"That's not what my remarks concern,'' he added. "My whole thing is the margin of error being too great as shown by the Police's statistics and something should be done about it.''