A driver bit the hand of a police officer to avoid an alcohol test which later confirmed that he had been drunk driving on Monday in Taiyuan, the capital city of north China's Shanxi Province, said local police on Wednesday.

The man, surnamed Hao, is being charged with dangerous driving after a breath alcohol test showed that his alcohol level was 102 milligrams of alcohol per 100 milliliters of blood.

A blood test later showed his alcohol level at 129 milligrams of alcohol per 100 milliliters of blood, exceeding the legal threshold of 80 milligrams of alcohol per 100 milliliters of blood, municipal traffic police said.

On Monday afternoon, a police officer spotted an off-road vehicle disobeying traffic rules on Chaoyang Street. The officer pulled the vehicle over, with Hao in the driver's seat. A copy of Hao's driver's license showed that his license had expired. When the police officer requested Hao's original driver's license, the man got out of the car and snatched the copy out of the policeman's hand.

When the policeman asked the driver to take a breath alcohol test after smelling alcohol on him, the man bit the policeman's left hand. The police officer tried to use his phone to call for reinforcements, but the man knocked the phone out of his hand and grabbed the officer by the neck, according to police.

The fight lasted for about 20 minutes before other officers arrived.

Hao was the first person to get caught drunk driving in Taiyuan since a newly amended law took effect on Sunday which imposes harsher punishments on drunk drivers.

The newly amended Road Traffic Safety Law states that anyone caught drunk driving will have their driver's license revoked upon conviction, have to wait five years to apply for a new license and face detention for one to six months.

The nationwide crackdown on drunk driving has led to dozens of other drivers being caught.

Nine drivers have been caught drunk driving in Beijing since Sunday morning, three of whom were involved in car accidents, according to statistics from the city's municipal traffic management bureau.