Organisation: Welsh Assembly Government
Date uploaded: 17th May 2011
Date published/launched: December 2009
This statistical bulletin assesses the relationship between drink driving and road accidents and casualties in Wales.
• The association between drink driving and accidents;
• The results of breath tests of drivers involved in accidents; and
• Enforcement action relating to drink driving, involving screening breath tests and the outcomes of prosecution through the Courts system.
There is a reasonable level of agreement between sources of information about drink driving and accidents. These suggest that drivers with blood alcohol levels above the legal limit for driving (currently 80mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood) were involved in a significant minority of accidents.
The bulletin also shows that for every 10 accidents where the driver was impaired by alcohol, there was around one accident where he/she was ‘impaired by drugs’, both illegal and medicinal.
Breath tests of drivers taken after accidents show:
• No marked seasonal pattern in casualties over a year arising from accidents where one or more of the drivers involved tested positive;
• More drivers in accidents test positive on the weekend rather than a weekday, and that they are more likely to test positive after traditional working hours, between 16:00 to 04:00; and
• There is some clustering of drink driving in Wales.
For more information contact:
Road Transport Wales
T: 029 2082 5413