7th-September-2020
The UK Government is considering to install a device called ‘Alcolock’ to vehicles to stop all the drink drivers from reoffending. The technology alcolocks prevents vehicles from starting if the driver has been drinking alcohol. The alcolock works in a similar way to the normal breathalyzers. When the alcolock is fitted into the vehicle the driver will then blow into the device, which then measures how much alcohol is in their system, if the system detects alcohol is above the legal limit, it will immobilise the vehicles engine so the motorist will not be able to drive.
The annual figures revealed that drink drive crashes have risen on UK’s roads by 3%. Around 5,800 accidents in 2018 involved at least one drink driver who was over the limit. This has risen up from the previous 12 months which was 5,700 and means around one in 20 of all reported crashes in 2018 involved drink driver. Some 80% of drink drive accidents in 2018 involved male drivers over the legal limit.
A spokeswoman for the Department For Transport said: “Drink driving is truly unacceptable. It’s a senseless act that puts everyone at risk. These new statistics show that four in five drink drivers who caused accidents were male. That’s why we’re focusing our work on young male drivers, with our award winning Think! campaign highlighting that mates don’t let mates drink drive,”
Neil Greg, Director of policy and research at road safety charity IAM RoadSmart said “Once again progress on reducing the toll of death and injuries from drink driving has stalled. There is no one simple answer to reducing these figures, but we believe a much smarter package of measures is needed from the government including a lower drink drive limit to reinforce good behaviour, fast track of evidential roadside testing machines to release police resources and tailored approaches to help drivers with alcohol problems. Rehabilitation courses work and we believe all those conducted of drink drivers should be set on one automatically rather than having to opt in.”
RAC Head of policy Nicholas Lyes said: “These are disappointing figures which illustrate the need for much more to be done to curb the plague of drink driving. The government has indicated it is looking at the possibility of introducing alcolocks technology to prevent re offenders from getting behind the wheel, so we’d like to know what progress is being made here. This together with more police on our roads conducting breathalyzers tests, could go a long way to cutting drink drive deaths in the future.”
The Scottish Government reduced the alcohol limit for drivers from 80 milligrams(mg) per 100 millilitres of blood to 50mg in December 2014, but the legal level in the rest of the UK remains 80mg.
