Focus on Drinking and Driving
Around 11 people are killed and 40 seriously injured in drink drive crashes every week. It’s not just the drivers who suffer, but also their passengers, people in other vehicles, pedestrians, cyclists or motorcyclists, and the families of everyone involved.
The legal drink drive limit is 80mg of alcohol per 100 ml of blood. However driving ability can be
impaired at blood alcohol levels below 80mg/100ml and the only really safe advice is to never
mix drinking and driving.
Furthermore, it is possible for a person to be charged with driving
when under the influence of drink or drugs even though their blood alcohol level may be below
80mg/100ml if, in the opinion of a police officer, they are ‘unfit’ to drive. The penalties are the
same as for the ‘over the limit’ driver.
Every year, about 90,000 people are convicted of drinking and driving, and face an automatic driving ban of at least 12 months, a large fine and possible imprisonment.
Alcohol
- makes drivers over-confident and more likely to take risks
- slows their reactions
- increases stopping distances
- impairs judgement of speed, distance and time
- affects vision
- makes co-ordination more difficult
- reduces the ability to concentrate.
Even a small amount, below the legal limit, seriously affects the ability to drive safely. 
We absorb alcohol very quickly, but it takes about an hour for 1 unit to be removed by a healthy liver. The number of units of alcohol in a drink depends on its size and alcoholic strength by volume (abv). Drinkers cannot be sure how much alcohol they are consuming because the alcoholic strength of drinks varies enormously, as does the size of measures.
The speed with which alcohol is absorbed into the bloodstream varies depending on a person’s size, age,weight and gender and whether they have eaten. The same amount of alcohol will give different blood alcohol levels in different people.
Morning After
Many drivers are caught the morning after they have been drinking. It takes several hours for
alcohol to disappear from the body, so someone who was drinking late the previous evening
could still be over the limit on their way to work the next morning.
Nearly half (44%) of drivers questioned in a Home Office survey, admitted to having driven after
drinking some alcohol in the previous year. 1 in 8 said they had driven when they thought they
were over the limit.
Further Information
| www.rospa.com/roadsafety click on 'Driving' and then 'Drinking and Driving' |
www.rospa.com/roadsafety click on 'Employers' and then 'Driving for Work: Drink and Drugs' |
| www.thinkroadsafety.gov.uk click on 'Road Safety Campaigns' and then 'Drink Driving' |
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RoSPA is a registered charity: Registered Charity No: 207823 Patron: Her Majesty the Queen RoSPA Head Office: Edgbaston Park, 353 Bristol Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham B5 7ST, UK |
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