RSPH calls for rest of UK to follow Scotland's lead in cutting drink drive limit
Ahead of the Christmas party season the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) is urging UK Governments to reduce the legal drink drive limit from 80mg to 50mg. Aside from Malta, the UK has the highest drink-drive limit in the EU with a legal blood alcohol limit of 80mg, although the UK is diverging in its approach with Scotland last year lowering its drink drive limit to 50mg, and Wales and Northern Ireland intending to follow suit.
In new research for RSPH, two thirds of motorists who admit to drink-driving reveal that that if the legal limit was lowered any further, they wouldn't bother drinking as they would be unsure of the correct amount to drink, or the amount they could legally consume would become so low it wouldn't be worth it.
While any amount of alcohol increases dangers, drivers just under the current limit are twice as likely to die in a crash compared to those just under the proposed limit of 50mg.[1] In places where the legal limit has been reduced there have been significant drops in alcohol-related crashes. Reviews have shown that the move to reduce the legal blood alcohol limit could save up to 170 lives per year[2] and that the adoption of a 50mg driving limit across European countries has reduced alcohol-related driving death rates by 11.5% among young people aged 18-25[3]. A year since the adoption of the lower limit in Scotland, data indicates that drink driving offences have fallen by 5% compared with the previous year.[4]
Shirley Cramer CBE, Chief Executive of RSPH said: "Alcohol related road fatalities account for around 1 in 7 road traffic deaths[5] and while good progress has been made in cutting the numbers killed or injured through alcohol-related driving incidents we believe that the UK should follow the lead of Scotland and the majority of EU countries and adopt a lower limit. The evidence is that this will lead to a drop in alcohol-related road traffic accidents and our research would suggest that a further reduction would encourage many motorists just not to take the risk of drink-driving."