Potential changes to drink drive limits

The summer is generally a quiet time for government policy announcements, but this week we saw announcements around the regulation of driving, principally as to older drivers and eye tests.

However, built into the announcement were comments which could materially impact the hospitality industry as they relate to the threshold of alcohol for drink driving.

For a few years, we have had a geographical difference across the UK with Scotland having a lower threshold level to that permitted in England and Wales.

The new plans, first reported in the Times, indicate that the drink-drive limit is to be tightened from 35 micrograms of alcohol per 100 millilitres of breath to 22 micrograms, which would match limits already set for Scotland.

Government ministers cite a catastrophic rise in alcohol related deaths but these statistics are as to deaths generally and not as to drink driving, where deaths had been falling but last year increased.

There is also an indication that the new regulations will look at drug driving. An option under consideration could also see police allowed to rely on roadside saliva tests for evidence of drug-driving rather than blood tests, making prosecutions simpler.

A government source told The Times that ministers believed they had a “responsibility” to start reducing road traffic accidents again. “It cannot be right that one person is killed or seriously injured on our roads every 18 minutes,” they said. “Just think of the impact on those people and their families. We cannot sit by and simply do nothing.”