The ads will complement a TV campaign, released last year, which features well-known Christmas songs such as Silent Night, accompanied by images of car crashes, police and ambulances. The ads, created by Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO, finish with the words, "Drinking and driving is one Christmas tradition we can all live without".
A national poster campaign at bus stops, on buses and on billboards has also been launched.
It is the 25th drink-drive campaign the government has run -- the first debuted in 1976 under minister for transport John Gilbert. That year, 1,600 people were killed in drink-related road accidents, a figure that was reduced to a low of 460 in 1999. However, the figure for 2000 looks set to be higher, provisionally fixed at 520.
Since 1976, some famous faces have appeared in the government's drink-driving ads, including a then-unknown Denise Van Outen and Eastenders stars Gillian Taylforth and John Altman.
Road safety minster David Jamieson said: "We are determined to commit our resources and our energies to rid our streets of the drink-drive menace. The increase in fatalities last year only serves to remind us that the job is not done."
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