Abstract

The current legal limit on drivers’ blood alcohol content was set at 80mg/100ml nearly 40 years ago and there are now only 3 other Member States of the European Union, all of them small countries, with limits higher than 50mg/100ml. Deaths from drink driving in Great Britain stopped falling 10 years ago, and show signs of rising. The reasons for the setting of the current limit in 1967 and changes since then are discussed, and a fresh look is taken at the likely annual reduction in deaths on the road in Great Britain if the limit here were lowered to 50mg/100ml. Lowering the limit is seen not as a measure to be taken in isolation, but as part of a substantial initiative to resume and sustain a clear downward trend in death and injury resulting from the avoidable excess risk of driving after drinking.