Reported road casualties in Great Britain: provisional estimates involving illegal alcohol levels: 2017

Drink drive deaths rose to an eight year high in 2017 – despite a year-on-year fall in the number collisions involving a driver over the legal alcohol limit.

These provisional stats for 2017 show that 290 people were killed in collisions where at least one driver was over the drink-drive limit – the highest number since 2009.

The figure, which equates to approximately 16% of road deaths in 2017, is 26% higher than 2016 – when there was an estimated 230 drink drive related deaths.

Despite the substantial rise in deaths, there was a year-on-year fall in the total number of drink drive related injuries in 2017 – down by 4% to 8,660.

There was also a 6% year-on-year fall in the number of crashes involving a drink driver – down from 6,070 to 5,730.