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Road Accidents Scotland 2003
3. Motorists, breath testing and drink-driving
3.1 Car driver accident rates(see Table 18)
All car drivers involved in injury accidents are included in this table, whether they were injured or not, on the basis of whatever information is known about their ages and their sex. For example, someone whose sex was known, but whose age was not known, will be included in the "all ages" total for the appropriate sex. The grand total includes those for whom neither the age nor the sex was known.
As the car driver accident rates that are shown for each sex and age group are on a "per head of population" basis, rather than being based upon the numbers of driving licence holders or upon the distance driven, they can provide only a general indication of the relative accident rates for each group. The statistics do not provide a measure of the relative risk of each group as car drivers, because they do not take account of the differing levels of car driving by each group.
Car driver accident rates per head of population vary markedly by age and sex. In 2003, the overall rate was 4.2 per thousand population aged 17+. The peak occurs for males in the 17-22 age group, with a rate of 10.0 per thousand population in 2003. This rate is more than double that for females of the same age (4.3 per thousand in 2003), and is about double the rate for males aged 30-59 (5.6 per thousand in 2003).
The overall male car driver accident rate in 2003 (5.6 per thousand) was less than in the previous year, and this was the case for each group apart from the 60+ age group, for whom the rate did not change. The overall female car driver accident rate in 2003 (2.9 per thousand) was the same as the previous year, and this was the case for the 17-22 group. There was a decrease for the 23-29 and the 30-59 age groups but an increase for the 60+ age group.
Between 1993 and 2003, the male car driver accident rate fell from 7.0 to 5.6 per thousand population, whereas the female car driver accident rate remained around 3.0 per thousand population (with some year-to-year fluctuations). As a result, the overall, ratio of male to female car driver accident rates has fallen from 2.5 : 1 for 1993 to 1.9 : 1 in 2003.
3.2 Breath testing of drivers(see Tables 19, 20 and 21)
These tables cover all motorists who were known to be involved in injury road accidents (the figures do not include, for example, those involved in "hit and run" accidents who were not traced). For these tables, a motorist is defined as the driver or the rider of a motor vehicle, including (e.g.) a motorcyclist.
In 2003, 62% of motorists involved in injury accidents were asked for a breath test (the percentage varied among the police forces, from about 45% to around 83%). The breath test proved positive (or the motorist refused to take the test) for 3.6% of those drivers breathalysed. This represented 2.2% of the total number of motorists involved (including those who were not asked for a breath test). These percentages have not changed much in the past five years.
Tables 20 and 21 show the figures for each time of day on different days of the week (Table 20 gives the averages for 1999 to 2003), and for a number of years (Table 21). In 2003, 44% of the "positive / refused" cases occurred between 9 p.m. and 3 a.m.: 95 between 9 p.m. and midnight, plus 127 between midnight and 3 a.m., out of a total of 501. Using 1999 to 2003 averages, the number of "positive / refused" cases, expressed as a percentage of motorists involved in accidents, was highest (at 15 - 16%) between midnight and 6 a.m., but varied depending upon the day of the week, from 9.0% (the average for 3 a.m. to 6 a.m. for Mondays to Thursdays) to 22.4% (3 a.m. to 6 a.m. on Sundays),. Table 20 shows that although the period from 9 p.m. to midnight had the second highest number of "positive / refused" cases, the equivalent percentages were not as high, because between 9 p.m. and midnight there were many more motorists involved in accidents than between midnight and 3 a.m.
3.3 Drink-drive accidents and casualties(see Table 22)
Table 22 shows the estimates (made by the Department for Transport) of the numbers of injury road accidents involving illegal alcohol levels. They are higher than the number of drivers with positive breath test results (or who refused to take the breath test) because they include allowances for the numbers of cases where drivers were not breath tested because of the severity of their injuries, or because they left the scene of the accident. Information about the blood alcohol levels of road users who died within 12 hours of being injured in a road accident is supplied by the Procurators Fiscal.
The estimates show that the numbers of drink-drive accidents fell by 5% but the number of casualties rose by 3% between 1992 and 2002 (the latest year for which estimates are available): from about 860 to roughly 820 (accidents) and from around 1,230 to some 1,270 (casualties). While fluctuating from year to year, the number of people killed as a result of drink-drive accidents is estimated to have fallen slightly, from about 60 in 1992 to around 50 in 2002. The number of serious casualties is estimated to have dropped by around a fifth (from roughly 310 in 1992 to some 240 in 2002).
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