Alcohol & Drugs in Road Fatalities (report)

Organisation: Transport Research Laboratory (TRL)
Date of Publication: November 2021
Uploaded to Knowledge Centre: 11 January 2022

Summary
This report covers data for fatal road collisions that occurred in 2019 and contains an overview of the data collection method, a summary of the BAC and drug data collected, and the results of more detailed BAC analysis.

Background
The national database of recorded injury collisions, Stats19, is based on data collected by the police and is collated by DfT for use in monitoring road safety. The Stats19 data includes the results of breath tests conducted for drivers and riders in collisions but these data are not available for fatalities. Therefore this project collects Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) data for fatalities to supplement the breath test data to monitor the number of drink drive casualties. 

BAC levels for road traffic fatalities aged 16 or older have been recorded by coroners in England and Wales since 1967 and by SFIUs in Scotland since 1978. These data have been collated by TRL for over 30 years and have become the principle source of information on the role of alcohol in fatal road collisions.

Many coroners and SFIUs now also record whether there were any drugs present in road traffic fatalities, based on toxicology reports. The role of drugs in road collisions has become a topic of concern and therefore DfT commissioned TRL to collect additional data from the coroners and SFIUs on the presence of drugs in road traffic fatalities.

Download the report from the TRL website:

https://trl.co.uk/publications/mis071-alcohol-and-drugs-in-road-fatalities