National statistics

Reported road casualties in Great Britain, provisional estimates involving illegal alcohol levels: 2019

Provisional estimates on personal injury drink drive accidents in Great Britain for 2019.

Documents

Reported road casualties in Great Britain, provisional estimates involving illegal alcohol levels: 2019 tables

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Details

Provisional estimates of casualties in accidents involving at least one driver or rider over the drink-drive limit in Great Britain for 2019 show that:

  • between 240 and 320 people were killed in drink-drive accidents, with a central estimate of 280 fatalities
  • the increase in drink-drive fatalities since 2018 is not statistically significant
  • an estimated 7,860 people were killed or injured in drink-drive accidents in 2019 which is the lowest on record
  • the total number of accidents where at least one driver was over the alcohol limit at 5,400 was the lowest level recorded

Since 2016, changes in severity reporting systems for a large number of police forces mean that serious injury figures, and to a lesser extent slight injuries, are not comparable with earlier years. Adjustments to account for the change have been included in this publication for the first time. More information on the change and the adjustment process is available in the 2019 annual report.

We are, therefore, now able to produce estimates for killed or seriously injured casualties. There were an estimated 2,110 KSIs in drink-drive accidents in 2019.

Background information on how drink-drive estimates are calculated can be found in the methodology note.

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Published 11 February 2021