It has been 50 years since the UK government’s Department for Transport introduced a maximum legal drink drive limit.
The landmark Road Safety Act 1967 brought in the offence of driving a vehicle with a blood alcohol concentration of over 80mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood, a limit which remains in place today. Since 1979, when official statistics began, the number of drink-drive deaths per year have plummeted from 1,640 to 200 in 2015 – a fall of 88%.
“This is a remarkable milestone, and I am proud of the work this department has done to reduce the number of deaths from drink driving over the last 50 years” said Roads Minister Jesse Norman. “The change in attitudes to drink driving during this time has been profound, and there is little doubt that the introduction of the drink-drive limit helped to give us what remains one of the safest road networks in the world.
“There is still much further to go, but we are making good progress. Our THINK! campaigns should help to reduce the number of drink drive incidents even further.”
A new THINK! drink-drive campaign will launch at the end of November.
