Joint research conducted by the RAC and the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety has indicated that, had England and Wales dropped their drink driving limit at the same time as Scotland did, then 25 lives could have been saved on UK roads, and that 95 serious injuries would have also been prevented.
Scotland lowered its drink driving limit from 80mg per 100ml of blood to its current 50mg per 100ml of blood in December last year, and the country has shown a relatively significant drop in accidents, while also showing a large reduction in the number of drink driving offences that were prosecuted during the year since the reduction. England and Wales retained its 80mg per 100ml of blood, with many critics claiming that the government was too worried about the effect on the pubs and licensed trade to make the reductions.
England and Wales now has one of the highest drink driving limits in Europe; a limit which has not been altered since 1967, and according to the study, 25 lives could have been saved over the past 12 months, had the limit been reduced across the whole country. The report went on to state that some of these lives have been saved because of the reduction in Scotland, but that the vast majority of fatalities have not.
Motoring groups, road safety charities, and a number of other groups have called on the government to reduce the limits in England and Wales in line with those in Scotland, and while they have continued to resist these calls, this kind of evidence and report could well encourage them to take action in a bid to try and save lives and further improve the safety of UK roads.
The government has recently announced a number of changes to motoring laws and to the motoring industry that they believe will improve road safety, including grants for driver education and for cyclist education, an increase in mobile phone offence penalties, and a grant to help ensure that more police are patrolling roads and policing drivers.
