Drink driving
While we agree that medical and statistical evidence supports a reduction in the current drink drive limit of 80mg alcohol per 100ml blood, we note that currently 2% of drivers killed in road accidents have a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) between 50mg/100ml and 80mg/100ml, while 18% have a BAC greater than 80mg. We recommend that the police should have an additional power to enable preliminary breath tests to be required and administered in the course of a designated drink drive enforcement operation.
We are concerned that a reduction in the limit to 50mg/100ml would send out a mixed message with the Government's official advice to not drink and drive at all, particularly in light of the strong evidence of public uncertainty about what constitutes a "legal drink". In the long term, we believe that the Government should aim for an "effectively zero" limit of 20mg/100ml but we acknowledge that is too great a step at this stage. Instead of an "interim" reduction to 50mg/100ml, the Government should concentrate on working with individual police forces to achieve a stricter enforcement of the current limit and beginning a public education campaign to help achieve public acceptance of a 20mg/100ml limit.
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