WHEN Ray Dorset of Bournemouth wrote Mungo Jerry’s smash 1970 hit In The Summertime, few people seem to have raised an eyebrow at the lyric “Have a drink, have a drive, go out and see what you can find.”

Only three years earlier, when transport minister Barbara Castle introduced the breathalyser, plenty of people had decried it as an infringement of their civil liberties.

Fortunately, times change. Most people now accept that nobody has a right to put other people’s lives at risk by drinking and driving.

And by 1992, Ray had seen his song used in a government advertising campaign against drink-driving.

Dorset Police today begins its summer drink-driving crackdown with a reminder that alcohol plays a part in a quarter of road fatalities in the county.

Fortunately, these days if you “have a drink, have a drive”, you’re likely to go out and find a police officer equipped with a breath test kit.