Saving Lives by Lowering the Legal-Drink-Drive Limit (report)

Around 25 lives could have been saved across Great Britain in 2015, if England and Wales had followed Scotland’s example and cut the drink-drive limit.

That’s the headline finding from this new report, authored by professor Richard Allsop and jointly commissioned by the RAC Foundation and PACTS. The report also says a lower limit could have prevented 95 serious injuries.

The law in Scotland was changed in December 2014 to reduce the drink-drive limit from 80mg alcohol/100ml blood to 50mg.

Professor Allsop studied road casualty data from 2010 to 2013, during which time the number of people killed in a collision involving a driver (or rider) over the drink-drive limit (or who refused a breath test) remained constant at about 240 per year, with an average of 1,200 people seriously injured.

However, for every four deaths in this type of collision Professor Allsop estimates there was another death that was the result of a collision where someone had been drinking but was within the limit.

Professor Allsop believes lowering the limit from 80mg alcohol to 50mg could result in casualty reductions as drivers moderate their drinking to comply with a new lower limit.