Drink Drive Deaths Rise

Provisional estimates show there were 240 drink drive related deaths in Great Britain during 2016, a year-on-year rise of 20%.

The figures show that between 200 and 280 people were killed in collisions where at least one driver was over the drink-drive limit – leading the DfT to produce a central estimate of 240 deaths.

The DfT describes the provisional rise from 200 deaths in 2015 as ‘statistically significant’, although it notes that the estimate for 2016 is ‘very similar’ to the figures between 2010 and 2014.

Around 13% of all road deaths in 2016 were drink drive related, unchanged from the previous year.

The number of people killed or seriously injured (KSI) in drink drive collisions rose by 9% to 1,500 – although the DfT says these figures should be interpreted with caution due to a large number of police forces changing their severity reporting systems.

The total number of drink drive related casualties climbed to its highest level since 2012 – the estimate of 9,050 reflecting a rise of 7% from 2015 (8,470). The number of collisions also rose – up 6% to 6,080 in 2016.

UKGRS suggest organisations have a duty of care and could educate their drivers quickly and easily by utilising our online training programme. Jane Sneddon, UKGRS Director, suggests it is not necessary to sign up to a long involved programme, just assign our Alcohol and Drugs module as a one off hit to get the message across.

For more information Jane can be contacted on 01452 347332