Call to lower drink-drive limit in England and Wales

Road safety charities, medical bodies, police forces and motoring bodies are calling for MPs to reduce the UK’s high drink driving limit.

Organisations as the Insitute of Alcohol Studies, Brake, Pacts, the AA and British Medical Journal point out that there has been no reduction in the number of drink driving deaths since 2010.

Every year drink driving causes 240 deaths and more than 8,000 casualties in the UK. This costs an estimated £800m a year. Some 60% of those who are killed or injured are people other than the driver, such as passengers, pedestrians and cyclists.

In England and Wales the drink-drive limit is set at 80mg alcohol/100ml blood and has been since 1965. England and Wales have one of the highest drink drive limits in the world. Set 80mg alcohol per 100ml blood, it is greater than the rest of Europe (with the exception only of Malta), as well as Commonwealth countries such as Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

Scotland lowered its limit to 50mg in December 2014, and police figures showed a 12.5% decrease in drink-drive offences in the first nine months.  Northern Ireland is set to lower its drink driving limit before the end of 2016. The Government of Malta recently announced plans to lower the drink drive limit to 50mg this month in a new National Alcohol Policy to reduce harm

Katherine Brown, director at the Institute of Alcohol Studies, said: “Recent decades have seen great improvements in road safety, but progress on drink driving has ground to a halt. With hundreds of lives lost each year, we can’t afford to let England and Wales fall behind our neighbours in road safety standards. It’s time the government looked at the evidence and what other countries are doing to save lives and make roads safer. We need to make drink driving a thing of the past, and to do this we need a lower drink drive limit."

A two-minute animation outlining the key arguments has been produced by the Institute of Alcohol Studies to support the campaign.

Brake cites strong public support for lowering the limit, with the British Social Attitude Survey recently finding that three quarters of the public (77%) support lowering the drink driving limit. “Lowering our drink drive limit to 50mg alcohol/100ml blood would reduce drink driving deaths by at least 10%,” said Gary Rae, Brake’s director of communications and campaigns.

“Drink driving remains one of the biggest causes of devastating road crashes; often young and inexperienced drivers and passengers are involved and frequently they are the tragic victims. We must continue to send a clear message to all drivers that drinking and driving is a lethal cocktail. It's shocking to see how many crashes, many involving deaths and serious injuries, have involved men in their 20s. This call to action today is a useful stepping stone to a time when there is a zero alcohol limit.”

Information on drink driving, with fully referenced statistics and information on drink driving accidents across England and Wales broken down by region can be found at www.ias.org.uk/lowerlimit

Organisations supporting the call for a lower drink drive limit include:

• The RAC Foundation
• The AA
• Institute of Advanced Motoring
• Campaign Against Drink Driving
• Insure the Box          
• Brake: The Road Safety Charity
• Allianz Abellio
• Medical Council on Alcohol 
• Spectrum Community Health
• Alcohol Health Alliance        
• The Royal College of Emergency Medicine
• British Medical Journal        
• Royal College of Practitioners
• Royal Society of Public Health        
• College of Paramedics
• SCARD: Support & Care After Road Death & Injury         
• Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (Pacts)
• Dorset Police and Crime Commissioner    
• Roadpeace
• Fire Brigades Union  Police Federation
• Merseyside Police and Crime Commissioner        
• Warwickshire Police and Crime Commissioner
• Leicestershire Police and Crime Commissioner    
• Durham Police and Crime Commissioner