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Download A year after drunken driving became punishable as a crime, drivers in China have become more serious about road safety, resulting in the rapidly developing yet unregulated designated driver business. "We can receive 300 orders a day on average, nearly double the figure for the same period last year," said Liu Jing, a manager at Changyinwuyou, a company that provides designated driver services in Beijing. As many as 500 people may call on a busy day, but the company can only handle fewer than 300 orders daily, Liu said. Designated driver services charge by distance, she added. China amended its Criminal Law on May 1 last year, stipulating that all drunken driving constitutes a criminal offense, regardless of whether road accidents or other serious consequences occur. Under the new law, drivers caught driving drunk will have their licenses revoked and could face a prison term of one to six months. Official figures show a fall in the number of drunken driving cases in China. According to the Ministry of Public Security's Traffic Management Bureau, from May 1 last year to April 20, traffic police handled 354,000 cases of driving under the influence of alcohol nationwide, down by 41.7 percent from the previous year. Drunken driving cases totaled 54,000, registering a 44.1 percent drop. Instead, the designated driver business is booming in big cities. "There are about 50 companies registered that provide designated driver service in Chengdu (capital of Sichuan province), and most of these were set up in the past year," said Chen Xu, vice-president of Chengdu Designated Driver Service Association. | 
