DRINK-DRIVERS killed five people in the North-East and left 58 seriously injured last year, according to figures.

Road safety charity Brake is launching a hard-hitting initiative against the menace of drink-driving, amid fears the message is not getting thr-ough to a new generation of motorists.

The charity also said drink-drive casualties across the country had risen a third in the past decade.

Its research in the North-East showed that more than half of drivers still at school or college admitted drink-driving. Interviews were carried out with 243 people aged under-25 in the region.

Fifty-three per cent admitted to drink driving, while ten per cent said they had drunk three to five pints before getting behind the wheel.

Twelve per cent even said alcohol made them a more careful driver.

The survey also found that one in five young people were unaware of the drink-drive limit.

Brake chief executive Mary Williams said: "Drinking and driving is the most horrendous and flagrant illegal act that a driver can commit.

"It is also really difficult to know how much alcohol you have drunk, so the only safe option is to drink nothing at all if you are driving."

Dave Jefferson, of the Tyne and Wear Fire Brigade, said: "If drivers could see the trauma they cause and the consequences of their actions, such as the bodies we have to cut from cars following drink-drive crashes, they would not get behind the wheel so quickly after a night out drinking."