RoSPA Press Office : Press Release

January 11, 2006
XMAS FIGURES SHOW DRINK-DRIVE LIMIT HAS TO GO LOWER

RoSPA today urged the Government to ditch the current drink-drive limit in favour of a lower one because too many motorists think it is safe to try to drink up to it when it clearly is not.

In the wake of more depressing figures over the Christmas and New Year period, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents said something had to be done to shock motorists into giving up drinking before driving.

Kevin Clinton, RoSPA Head of Road Safety, said: “Three hundred people caught drinking and driving each day in December shows far too many think they can get away with drinking and driving. They believe the current legal limit of 80mg is a safe one and it is not. We want to see the limit reduced to 50mg, because between 50mg and 80mg you are two to two-and-a-half time more likely to be involved in an accident and six times more likely to be in a fatal crash than with no alcohol in your system.

“Cutting the limit would hopefully deter people from risking their licences, even if they were not afraid of risking their lives. If people ignore drink-drive messages when high-profile publicity campaigns are being run, it is frightening to think what they do at other times of the year.

“The number of people caught for driving under the influence of drugs also shows this is a growing problem which needs to be addressed through education and enforcement.”

Drink-drive deaths are now at their highest since 1992, with 590 people killed in drink-drive accidents in 2004. Studies show that cutting the limit to 50mg would save 65 lives and 230 serious injuries a year. Britain is one of only four countries out of 15 in the EU with a level above 50mg.

The Government has resisted calls to reduce the limit, but RoSPA believes that latest figures are yet more evidence that something has to be done to prevent innocent lives from being lost. The Society also wants police to be given powers to breath test anywhere and at anytime, and hopes the Government will use the Road Safety Bill currently before Parliament to make the long-awaited changes. “Drink drivers need to expect to get caught,” Kevin Clinton said.

Figures released today by police after a campaign, which ran throughout England and Wales for the whole of December 2005, saw 133,136 drivers breath tested, of whom 9,275 tested positive (6.96 per cent). The total number of breath tests carried out on drivers involved in collisions during the same period was 15,635, of whom 1,344 tested positive (8.6 per cent). After “fit to drive” tests on 540 drivers suspected of being impaired while driving under the influence of drugs, 178 were subsequently arrested for drink or drug impairment offences (32.96 per cent).

See also: www.rospa.com/roadsafety/info/drink_drive.pdf