18% Drop in U.K. Fatalities From Drink Drive Accidents

The U.K. Department for Transport has today published provisional statistics on accidents involving drinking and driving in Great Britain in 2007, according to the arrangements approved by the UK Statistics Authority.

Provisional drink drive estimates show:

Fatalities resulting from drink drive accidents fell by 18% from 560 in 2006 to 460 in 2007, whilst seriously injured casualties fell by 11% from 1,970 to 1,760. Slight casualties, however, rose by 4% from 11,840 to 12,260. Total casualties rose by 1% from 14,370 to 14,480.

Fatal accidents fell by 16% from 490 to 410, although there was an overall increase of 2% in drink drive accidents from 9,400 to 9,620.

For the purposes of these drink drive statistics, a drink drive accident is defined as being an incident on a public road in which someone is killed or injured and where one or more of the motor vehicle drivers or riders involved either refused to give a breath test specimen when requested to do so by the police (other than when incapable of doing so for medical reasons), or one of the following:

i) failed a roadside breath test by registering over 35 micrograms of alcohol per 100 milliliters of breath

ii) died and was subsequently found to have more than 80 milligrams of alcohol per 100 milliliters of blood.

Drink drive casualties are defined as all road users killed or injured in a drink drive accident.

Source: DoT

Net News Publisher for World News