Fifty years ago, the government launched the UK’s first ever anti-drink drive campaign.
Back then, drink driving was widely accepted — if not taken for granted: a 1979 survey found that half of male drivers and nearly two-thirds of young male drivers admitted drink driving on a weekly basis.
Today, drink driving is still a problem, but social acceptance of drink driving has fallen, to the extent that new research from THINK! has found that 88% of people say they would think badly of someone who drinks and drives, and 45% of people would rather tell their partner they watch porn regularly than admit to having been caught drink driving.
In a similar vein, 61% of those questioned would prefer to reveal their internet search history to their employer than admit to a drink drive conviction. Completing this not-so-sexy trio of statistics is the interesting finding that 24% of people would rather tell their partner they’ve had a sexually transmitted infection, than admit to having been caught drink driving.
There’s no doubt social acceptance of drink driving has changed, but frankly, I also think that these figures say as much about changing social attitudes to sex and pornography as they do about drink driving, which is still too widely accepted, in my opinion.
Still a problem
In 2012, the most recent year for which figures are available, 230 people were killed by drunk drivers, and 1,200 were seriously injured.
Admittedly that’s a big improvement on 1967, when 1,640 people died as a result of drink driving, but it’s still too many, given that unlike sober road traffic collisions, crashes caused by drink driving are effectively caused deliberately by the driver who chose to drink. If they hadn’t, the collision — and death — would probably have been avoided.
Drink driving is still a regular occurrence for many, and while it’s not so openly approved of, I know from personal experience that there are still many drivers who think it’s ok, as long as you’re not actually drunk. This misses the point that even a small amount of alcohol impairs the highly complex and rapid motor skills needed to drive safely on today’s busy roads.
Limit too high
The UK’s archaic 80mg limit practically encourages a culture of drink driving, as it permits a surprising amount of alcohol to be drunk legally before driving. The EU’s recommended 50mg limit would be better, but far better still would be for us to adopt the 20mg limit used in Sweden, Poland and Greece, amongst others.
It’s for this reason that vanrental.co.uk is a long-standing supporter of Brake and the THINK! campaign: far too many personal tragedies are caused by dangerous and uneccessary behaviour on our roads.
Finally, for a touch of nostalgia, check out the UK’s first ever road safety video — from when men did the driving and women did the nagging (strangely, that situation hasn’t changed as much as you might think — today, men account for 77% of drink drive casualties):
Drink Drive Office Party from BFI on Vimeo.