Motorists caught driving drunk twice within a year will have their licenses suspended for five years, the municipal traffic administration said Wednesday.

Beijing traffic police intensified their crackdown on drunk driving, charging nearly 1,000 drivers during a 100-day campaign that began at the end of last November.

Drivers caught drunk driving in China can be immediately detained by the police. They also face fines of up to 2,000 yuan.

Drunk driving in Beijing is defined as a blood alcohol content of 100 milligrams of alcohol per 100 milliliters of blood. The administration says reaching that level would usually require someone to drink three bottles of beer.

Beijing regulations stipulate that drivers can not drink any amount of alcohol and then drive a motor vehicle. Drivers can be fined up to 500 yuan when alcohol is detected in their blood.

In China, driving while fatigued, overloaded vehicles, speeding and drunk driving are the major causes of traffic accidents. Last year, the official number of people killed on China's roads reached 89,455, according to the Ministry of Public Security.

(Xinhua News Agency March 22, 2007)