27 January 2009

Time is right to cut drink-drive limit

One of the UK's leading road safety organisations has once again called on the government to cut the drink-drive limit in the wake of new figures released last week.

The Local Authority Road Safety Officers' Association (LARSOA) has welcomed the increase in the number of drivers breathalysed over the festive period but is concerned that the number of drivers testing positive remained largely unchanged from the previous year.

Of the 183,397 drivers tested in 2008, 9148 (4.99%) either tested positive or refused to supply a sample of breath. In 2007 from the 158,061 drivers tested 7913 tested positive   (5.01%).

The association feels that this points to a lack of understanding of current drink-drive limit and the fact that a hardcore minority of people are continuing to knowingly drink above the limit and get behind the wheel.

LARSOA believes that the drink-drive limit should be cut from 80mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood to 50mg, which would send a clear message that it is not acceptable to drink and drive.

Alan Kennedy, Vice-Chair of LARSOA, said:

"The reduction in the number of people caught drink driving is encouraging, but we feel there is still lots more that could be done - starting with a reduction in the drink-drive limit.

"The latest government figures show that in 2007 over 2,000 people were seriously injured as a result of drink-driving and 460 of those involved, tragically, were killed.

"LARSOA believes that the only safe way to drive is with no known alcohol in the blood. Lowering the legal limit to 50mg would send out a clear, strong message that it is totally unacceptable to put lives at risk by driving under the influence of alcohol.

"What we must remember throughout all of this is that drinking and driving ruins the lives of hundreds of families every year."

ABOUT LARSOA

LARSOA is a national road safety organisation representing road safety officers (RSOs) employed in local government across the UK.

LARSOA represents 185 of the 200 eligible local authorities across the UK, assisting RSOs to fulfil their statutory role to reduce the number and severity of road casualties through education, training and publicity programmes.

LARSOA publishes an up-to-date round-up of road safety news from across the UK on its website www.larsoa.org.uk .

LARSOA also aims to influence national debate - government policy and action together with public opinion. The association works to achieve national recognition for road safety issues, commissions research into behaviour which contributes to road collisions and develops national road safety campaigns.

The association assists in identifying achievable national targets to reduce the number of collisions on the country's roads.