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ROAD ACCIDENTS SCOTLAND 1999

3. Motorists, breath testing and drink-driving

3.1 Car driver accident rates (see Table 22)

All car drivers involved in injury accidents are included in this table, whether they were injured or not, on the basis of whatever information is known about their ages and their sex. For example, someone whose sex was known, but whose age was not known, will be included in the "all ages" total for the appropriate sex. The grand total includes those for whom neither the age nor the sex was known.

As the car driver accident rates that are shown for each sex and age group are on a "per head of population" basis, rather than being based upon the numbers of driving licence holders or upon the distance driven, they can provide only a general indication of the relative accident rates for each group. The statistics do not provide a measure of the relative risk of each group as car drivers, because they do not take account of the differing levels of car driving by each group.

Car driver accident rates per head of population vary markedly by age and sex. The peak occurs for males in the 17-22 age group, with a rate of 11.0 per thousand population in 1999. This rate is more than double that for females of the same age (5.1 per thousand in 1999), and is almost double the rate for males aged 30-59 (6.2 per thousand in 1999).

The overall male car driver accident rate in 1999 (6.3 per thousand) was less than in the previous year, and this was the case for each age-group. The overall female car driver accident rate in 1999 (3.1 per thousand) was also less than the previous year and this was also the case for each age-group.

There has been a substantial rise in female car driver accident rates since 1981-85, particularly among the younger age groups. In 1999 the car driver accident rate for 17-22 year old females was 73% above the level of the 1981-85 annual average. There have been increases for all female age groups: 66% for 23-29; 51% for 30-59; and 42% for 60+ and the total has increased by 54%.

In contrast, male car driver accident rates have fallen for all categories over the same period by 24%, with reductions for all groups. Consequently the ratio of male to female car driver accident rates has fallen from 4.0 : 1 for the 1981-85 annual average to 2.0 : 1 in 1999.

3.2 Breath testing of drivers (see Table 23, Table 24 and Table 25)

These tables cover all motorists who were known to be involved in injury road accidents (the figures do not include, for example, those involved in "hit and run" accidents who were not traced). For these tables, a motorist is defined as the driver or the rider of a motor vehicle, including (eg) a motorcyclist. It should be noted that some of the figures for 1985 differ greatly from those for 1986, because in December 1985 the Scottish Police authorities introduced a policy of breath-testing all drivers in an accident, wherever possible.

In 1999, 67% of motorists involved in accidents were asked for a breath test (the percentage varied among the police forces, from about 57% to around 83%). The breath test proved positive (or the motorist refused to take the test) in 3.1% of those drivers breathalysed. This represented 2.1% of the total number of motorists involved (including those who were not asked for a breath test). While these percentages have not changed much in the past five years, over the longer-term there appears to have been a reduction in both the numbers and the proportion of "drink drivers": the number of "positive / refused breath test" cases fell from 1,118 in 1986 to 512 in 1999, and from 3.8% to 2.1% as a percentage of all motorists involved in accidents.

Tables 24 and 25 show the figures for each time of day on different days of the week, and for a number of years. In 1999, 45% of the "positive / refused" cases occurred between 9 p.m. and 3 a.m. Between midnight and 6 a.m., the number of "positive / refused" cases, expressed as a percentage of motorists involved in accidents, varied from about 9% to around 19%, depending upon the day of the week, and was much higher than at other times of the day. The period from 9 p.m. to midnight had the second highest number of "positive / refused" cases, but the equivalent percentage was not as high (varying between about 4% and 7%), because between 9 p.m. and midnight there were many more accidents than between midnight and 3 a.m.

3.3 Drink-drive accidents and casualties (see Table 26)

Table 26 shows the estimates (made by the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions) of the numbers of injury road accidents involving illegal alcohol levels. They are higher than the number of drivers with positive breath test results (or who refused to take the breath test) because they include allowances for the numbers of cases where drivers were not breath tested because of the severity of their injuries, or because they left the scene of the accident. Information about the blood alcohol levels of road users who died within 12 hours of being injured in a road accident is supplied by the Procurators Fiscal.

The estimates show that the numbers of drink-drive accidents and casualties fell by 35% and 39% respectively between 1988 and 1998 (the latest year for which estimates are available): from 1,140 to 740 (accidents) and from 1,800 to 1,090 (casualties). The number of people killed as a result of drink-drive accidents is estimated to have fallen from about 70 in 1988 to around 50 in 1998, and the number of serious casualties is estimated to have dropped by more than half (from roughly 540 in 1988 to some 250 in 1998).

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