A drink-driver is a person who drives a car after drinking too much alcohol. This is the British name for that person. American English almost always says drunk driver instead. The word names the person, not the crime; the crime is drink-driving. Police, courts, and news use it, and it is not a soft or funny word. Though actually, you do not have to be drinking in the car at that moment. If you drank too much and then got behind the wheel — even hours later, with alcohol still in your blood — you are still a drink-driver.