ROAD ACCIDENTS SCOTLAND 2000

Drink-drive accidents and casualties

Drink-drive estimates: background

1. Each year, the Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions (DTLR) estimates the numbers of injury road accidents involving illegal alcohol levels (i.e. above the current drink-drive limit of 80 milligrams (mg) of alcohol per 100 millilitres (ml) of blood). DTLR publishes its estimates for Great Britain as a whole in an article in its "Road Accidents Great Britain" statistical volume. Although that article does not provide separate figures for Scotland (or for other parts of Great Britain), DTLR produces them as part of its calculations, and these appear in the table below. Because of the uncertainty involved, each estimate is rounded to the nearest ten.

2. The basis of the estimates is described in the DTLR publication. Briefly, they use information from the Road Accidents statistical returns about the numbers of injury road accidents in which one (or more) motor vehicle drivers or riders refused to give a breath test specimen or failed the breath test (by registering over 35 micrograms per 100 millilitres of breath) and information from Procurators Fiscal (and Coroners in England and Wales) about the blood alcohol levels of road users who died within 12 hours of being injured in a road accident. These two sets of information must be used because, for example, some drivers are too seriously injured to be breath tested. The calculations are intended to produce estimates which include allowances for the numbers of cases (e.g.) where drivers or riders were not breath tested because they left the scene of the accident, or where their blood alcohol levels were not reported, for example because they died more than 12 hours after the accident.

3. The estimates for 2000 are not yet available because of the timing of the provision of the results of the blood alcohol tests to DTLR.

4. There are no estimates for Scotland of the number of alcohol-related injury road accidents which involve legal alcohol levels (i.e. alcohol levels up to the current drink-drive limit of 80mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood), nor are there any estimates for Scotland of the numbers of non-injury ("damage only") road accidents involving illegal alcohol levels.

5. The figures given here differ from the numbers of drivers with positive (or refused) breath tests. While the Police aim to breath test all drivers involved in an accident, wherever possible, they cannot do so in some cases (for example, hit and run drivers, or where they cannot administer a breath test due to the nature of the injury). In recent years, around two-thirds of motorists involved in injury road accidents in Scotland have been breath tested.

Table 26
Accidents which involved motor vehicle drivers or riders with illegal alcohol levels⁽¹⁾, by severity of accident; and casualties in such accidents, by severity

Years: 1989 to 1999

Estimated numbers, adjusted for under-reporting⁽²⁾

	Number of accidents				Number of casualties
	Fatal	Serious	Slight	Total	Fatal	Serious	Slight	Total
1989	70	350	780	1,190	80	480	1,190	1,750
1990	70	310	650	1,040	80	440	1,080	1,600
1991	60	270	650	990	80	400	1,040	1,510
1992	40	240	580	860	60	310	860	1,230
1993	50	190	600	840	60	280	940	1,280
1994	60	260	470	790	80	340	760	1,170
1995	40	210	530	790	50	310	850	1,210
1996	30	200	520	750	50	280	840	1,170
1997	40	200	550	790	40	290	890	1,220
1998	50	170	520	740	50	250	790	1,090
1999	50	190	520	750	60	250	800	1,110

(1) above the current drink-drive limit of 80mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood.
(2) see the explanatory note 2 above.