An increased police focus on gang activity has meant less focus on traffic issues, according to police.But speaking at a town-hall meeting last week, Assistant Commissioner Paul Wright said that a plan is in place for tackling the culture of drunk driving on the Island.“I think that a change in this culture of drink driving is something that can really happen this year,” he said.The effect of the focus on serious violence has been like “squeezing a balloon” with resources being moved away from issues like traffic.While the serious crime unit has quadrupled in size and an armed response unit was created, Mr Wright said the service’s manpower has not grown.He noted that the service’s operational priorities are guns, gangs, drugs and violence, but added: “We cannot ignore that nine people lost their lives on our roads last year, or the fact that there is a culture of drinking and driving.”Mr Wright told the crowd of more than a hundred attendees that while the traffic unit is not the same size that it has been in the past, but that it is an area the police have committed to working harder in.Mr Wright said that while traffic enforcement was down last year compared to 2011, the number of traffic collisions actually fell by around seven percent from 1,792 to 1,684.“One of the bits of analysis we are looking at now is if that decline is the unexpected result of more police officers being out on the road, particularly doing vehicular checks, using their powers of stop and engage people and if necessary search the vehicle,” he said.Regarding the issue of drunk driving, he said police have been meeting with groups such as CADA and the Road Safety Council, and the groups are of one mind as to how to move forward — particularly in regard to road side breath tests.“Those are important initiatives that we know from other jurisdictions that have helped to reduce the number of collisions, particularly fatal traffic collisions,” Mr Wright said.“Statistics show that drugs and alcohol, or sometimes both, are a contributing factor in fatal traffic collisions, so it is an area of concern for us and we are putting the resources into it that we can.”CADA Chairman Anthony Santucci yesterday reiterated the organisation’s support for road side breath tests, saying that many of the deaths on Bermuda’s roads have been caused by alcohol or drugs.“The main objective of sobriety checkpoints is to change behaviour of motorists so they don’t drink and drive,” Mr Santucci said. “Sobriety checkpoints work because the public is told before hand that the checkpoints will be taking place.“Motorists will then know there is an increased likelihood that if they drink and then drive they will get caught. Behaviour is changed and it has been proven that fewer people drink and drive once sobriety checkpoints have been introduced.”Useful website: www.cada.bm.