To ask the Minister of State, Department for Transport how many and what percentage of road deaths involved at least one driver with a blood alcohol level in excess of the legal limit in each year since 1980. (284804)

The estimated numbers and the percentages of all road deaths in accidents involving at least one driver over the legal alcohol limit in each year since 1980 to 2007 are given in the table. Provisional 2008 data will be available on 6 August 2009.

A drink drive accident is defined as being an incident on a public road in which someone is killed or injured and where one or more of the motor vehicle drivers or riders involved either refused to give a breath test specimen when requested to do so by the police (other than when incapable of doing so for medical reasons), or one of the following:

(i) failed a roadside breath test by registering over 35 micrograms of alcohol per 100 millilitres of breath

(ii) died and was subsequently found to have more than 80 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood.

However, not all drink drive accidents are detected in this way, as there are some drivers involved for whom neither of the above test results are available, even though they were over the legal limit. The Department for Transport’s statistics therefore are adjusted to allow for this in order to produce a better estimate of the number of drink drive accidents and casualties. See in article 3 of “Road Casualties Great Britain—annual report 2007” published on the Department’s website at:

http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/statistics/datatablespublications/accidents/casualtiesgbar/roadcasualtiesgreatbritain20071

Copies of the report have been deposited in the Libraries of the House.