Around 25 lives could have been saved across Great Britain this year, if England and Wales had followed the example of Scotland and cut the drink-drive limit.
A reduction from the current 80mg to 50mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood could also have prevented a further 95 people a year being seriously injured.
The law in Scotland was changed in December 2014 so that the drink-drive limit fell from 80mg alcohol/100ml blood to 50mg.
The estimates come from research by Professor Richard Allsop in his report Saving Lives by Lowering the Legal-Drink-Drive Limit. The work was jointly commissioned by the RAC Foundation and PACTS.
Professor Allsop studied road casualty data from 2010 to 2013 under various assumptions. The data for Great Britain records that over this period the number of people killed in a collision involving a driver (or rider) over the drink-drive limit (or who refused a breath test) remained constant at about 240 per year, with an average of 1,200 people seriously injured.
– See more at: http://www.racfoundation.org/media-centre/drink-drive-limit-cut-could-save-25-lives-a-year-press-release#sthash.fc9yAJhX.dpuf
