There are several reasons for this, and they're not all obvious.

It's true that the paranoia about getting caught, which operates as such a potent deterrent in Dublin and other urban areas, doesn't extend to the middle of nowhere. The gardai rarely operate checkpoints at any great distance from a major town. They will say they don't have the resources, and naturally there's not much to be gained by setting up a checkpoint on a freezing road where one car passes every 20 minutes.

But the lack of policing is not the sole reason for it. People may not be so afraid of being caught, but they are certainly aware that, if they have a crash and are found to be over the limit, they're done for, so the arm of the law reaches everywhere.

Drunk driving is frowned on here too, though maybe not quite as much as in the peer-pressured urban pub scene with its fashionable latter-day puritanism, which makes a taboo of everything from smoking to not eating enough fibre. (We don't exercise much in the country either, but we forgive ourselves. ) Drinking and driving is regarded as regrettable but unavoidable. There's just no choice. In remote parts of Ireland, if you don't go to the pub, you'll never have a night out.

There are no cinemas, no theatres, no clubs, no bowling alleys, no swimming pools, no concert venues. . . and of course we do have the best pubs.

Even if you're lucky enough to live within walking distance of your local, it's safer if everyone drives. Country roads are treacherous enough for pedestrians in broad daylight with everyone sober. Walking a country road at night would be suicide.

The principal reason for it, though, is a sort of common sense which is a world away from the quarrelsome and usually urban-centred debate, with its hysterical calls for the total curtailment of civil liberties for the sake of improving road safety. All drunk drivers may be equal under law, but everyone knows that they are not all the same.

The archetypal drunk driver in a rural area is someone who knows they're over the limit, is worried about it, and hence pootles along at 15 miles an hour with their nose pressed against the windscreen. Often there's a tense little spouse in the passenger seat saying, "Mind! Mind!" These are not the same people who are careering down the wrong side of the road at 100 miles an hour and killing one another.

More importantly, the gardai realise this too. They might not tell you so on the record, but they are pragmatic enough to know that people everywhere are quietly having a few drinks and driving home afterwards.

They understand that the vast majority of people will take extra care to drive responsibly in those circumstances.

The gardai aren't out to get you for taking to the driver's seat with three units in you. The people they're out to get are those who drive sozzled . . . and especially young males under 25 who tend to speed up rather than slow down under the influence of alcohol.

The blood-alcohol limit of 80mg/100ml is the letter of the law. It's been said many times, but rigorously enforcing that law and expecting it to improve road safety would be like reducing the speed limit from 80 kilometres an hour to 70, in the hope of deterring those people who habitually drive at 130.

Civilised people will police themselves, and no amount of policing will frighten people who are hell-bent on being uncivilised.

That's country logic, at least.