Drink Driving: Towards Zero Tolerance Members Board of directors Accident Research Unit, Medical University Hannover (D) Professor Herman De Croo Association Prévention Routière (F) Professor Richard Allsop Austrian Road Safety Board (KFV) (A) Dr. Walter Eichendorf Automobile and Travel Club Germany (ARCD) (D) Professor Pieter van Vollenhoven Belgian Road Safety Institute (IBSR/BIVV) (B) Professor G. Murray Mackay Central Denmark Region (Region Midtjylland) (DK) MEP Brian Simpson Centre for Transport and Logistics (CTL), MEP Ines Ayala Sender University of Rome “La Sapienza” (I) MEP Dieter-Lebrecht Koch Centro Studi Città Amica (CeSCAm),University of Brescia (I) MEP Corien Wortmann-Kool Chalmers University of Technology (S) Dirk STERCKX Confederación Nacional de Autoescuelas (CNAE) (ES) Confederation of Organisations in Road Transport Secretariat Enforcement (CORTE) (Int) Czech Transport Research Centre (CDV) (CZ) Antonio Avenoso, Executive Director Danish Road Safety Council (DK) Ellen Townsend, Policy Director Dutch Safety Board (NL) Graziella Jost, Director of Projects European Federation of Road Traffic Victims (FEVR) (Int) Ilyas Daoud, Project Officer Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM) (Int) Francesca Podda, Project Officer Finnish Motor Insurers’ Centre, Traffic Safety Julie Galbraith, Project Officer Committee of Insurance Companies VALT (FIN) Mircea Steriu, Communications Officer Finnish Traffic Safety Agency (Trafi) (FIN) Paolo Ferraresi, Financial Officer Flemish Foundation for Traffic Knowledge (VSV) (BE) Folksam Research (S) Fondazione ANIA (I) German Road Safety Council (Deutscher Verkehrssicherheitsrat) (DVR) (D) Global Road Safety Partnership (Int) Hellenic Institute of Transport (HIT) (GR) Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds (UK) INTRAS - Institute of Traffic and Road Safety, University of Valencia (ES) Liikenneturva (FIN) Lithuanian National Association Helping Traffic Victims (NPNAA) (LT) Motor Transport Institute (ITS) (PL) MOVING International Road Safety Association e.V. (Int) Norwegian Abstaining Motorists’ Association (NO) OR YAROK (IL) Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS) (UK) Road and Safety (PL) Road Safety Authority (IE) Road Safety Institute Panos Mylonas (GR) Road Traffic Safety Agency, Republic of Serbia (SRB) For more information about ETSC’s activities Safer Roads Foundation (UK) and membership, please contact: Slovenian Traffic Safety Agency (SI) ETSC Swedish National Society for Road Safety (S) Avenue des Celtes 20 Swiss Council for Accident Prevention (bfu) (CH) B-1040 Brussels Transport Infrastructure, Systems and Policy Group (TISPG) (PT) Tel. +32 2 230 4106 Trygg Trafikk - The Norwegian Council for Road Safety (NO) Fax. +32 2 230 4215 Transport Safety Research Centre, University of Loughborough (UK) E-mail: [email protected] University of Birmingham (UK) Internet: www.etsc.eu ETSC is grateful to DIAGEO for the financial support provided for this publication. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of ETSC and do not necessarily reflect the views of the sponsors. Drink Driving: Towards Zero Tolerance Written by Francesca Podda ETSC project Officer 24 April 2012 Acknowledgements ETSC gratefully acknowledges the contributions to the case studies presented in this Report made by: Petr Pokorn� and Jindrich Fric (CDV, Czech Republic) Michael Brosnan and Niamh Gaughan (Road Safety Authority, Ireland) John Arild Jenssen and Grete Mathisrud (Ministry of Transport, Norway) Anna Vadeby and Susanne Gustafsson (VTI, National Road and Transport Research Institute, Sweden) ETSC also acknowledges the contributions of ETSC members and PIN Panellists to this report. Numbers of deaths attributed to drink driving and national definitions were supplied by the PIN Panellists in each country and are available in the annexes. ETSC is grateful for the financial support provided for this report by Diageo. The contents of this publication, however, are the sole responsibility of ETSC and do not necessarily reflect the view of the sponsor. European Transport Safety Council The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) is an international non-governmental organisation which was formed in 1993 in response to the persistent and unacceptably high European road casualty toll and public concern about individual transport tragedies. ETSC brings together experts of international reputation and representatives of 45 national and international organisations concerned with transport safety from across Europe to exchange experience and knowledge and to identify and promote research- based contributions to transport safety. ETSC provides an impartial source of advice on transport safety matters to the European Commission, the European Parliament and, where appropriate, to national governments and organisations concerned with safety throughout Europe. 4 Contents Executive Summary 7 Introduction 9 1. Scope of the problem 11 2. EU measures to tackle drink driving 12 2.1 European Commission’s Policy Orientations on Road Safety 2011-2020 12 2.2 Council Conclusions on the Policy Orientations 12 2.3 European Parliament response to the Policy Orientations 12 2.4 The Cross Border Enforcement Directive 13 2.5 The Traffic Law Enforcement Recommendation 14 2.6 The European Alcohol and Health Forum 14 3. Policy Recommendations 15 4. Drink Driving Country Ranking 16 4.1 Faster progress in reducing drink driving deaths than other road deaths 16 4.2 Comparison between countries 16 4.3 Drink Driving enforcement 19 4.4 Progress in implementing alcohol interlocks 20 5. Case Studies 22 5.1 Czech Republic 22 5.2 Ireland 30 5.3 Norway 38 5.4 Sweden 44 5 6 Executive summary This ETSC policy paper provides an overview of the drink driving situation in the European Union (Chapter 1) and measures taken at the EU level to curb drink driving deaths (Chapter 2). ETSC calls on Member States and the European Institutions to adopt a zero tolerance for drink driving. Other ETSC recommendations to Member States and the European Union are also included in Chapter 3. Chapter 4 looks at countries’ progress in reducing road deaths attributed to drink driving between 2001 and 2010. Road deaths attributed to alcohol have been cut by 53% between 2001 and 2010 in these countries, while other road deaths decreased by 47%. Ireland achieved impressive reductions in cutting alcohol related deaths from 124 in 2003 to 48 in 2007. Slovakia cut drink driving deaths from 50 in 2001 to an average of 15 per year in 2008-2010. Latvia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Sweden, Slovenia, Lithuania, Germany, Belgium, Greece and Austria also reduced drink driving deaths faster than other road deaths. Chapter 5 presents a case study of four European countries: the Czech Republic, Ireland, Norway and Sweden. Successes and shortcomings of drink driving policies are discussed with national experts from these four countries. The implementation of alcohol interlocks in Norway, the adoption of a lower BAC limit in Ireland or the effect of zero tolerance for drink driving in the Czech Republic and the impact of Vision Zero to support the fight against drink driving in Sweden are among the good practices implemented in those countries. 7 8 Introduction In 2010, nearly 31,000 people were killed in the European Union as a consequence of road collisions.1 Up to 2% of km driven in the EU are associated with an illegal Blood Alcohol Concentration.2 Drink driving is one of the three main killers. According to the European Commission’s estimates 25% of all road deaths across the EU are alcohol related3. If so, ETSC estimates that 6,500 deaths would have been prevented in 2010 if all drivers had obeyed the law on drink driving. The ETSC’s Drink Driving Policy Network aims at contributing to the reduction of alcohol-related road deaths and injuries through the identification and promotion of best practice. It focuses particularly on gathering and disseminating information on EU Member States’ performance in reducing deaths from drink driving and presenting good practice examples from those countries that have showed a strong commitment in tackling one of the main killers on the roads. 1 ETSC (2011) 5th Road Safety PIN Report. 2 ERSO 2006. 3 Against 11% according to official statistics. ETSC (2010) 4th Road Safety PIN Report. 9 1. Scope of the problem Europe is the heaviest drinking region in the world, with a prevalence of heavy episodic drinking in excess of one fifth of the adult population. Data from the latest WHO Report on Alcohol and Health 2010 show that alcohol consumption decreased during the 1990s, then increased and stabilised at a higher level than between 2004 and 2006. The European average of 9.2 litres of pure alcohol consumed per year hides big differences among countries. Countries such as Malta, Norway and Sweden have a lower level of alcohol consumption than Estonia, the Czech Republic and Ireland.4 Alcohol, even in small quantities, immediately affects the brain system. Effects on the human body and behaviour range from anaesthesia after large amounts of alcohol to impairment of behavioural and cognitive capabilities after small doses. Alcohol may also decrease motivation to comply with safety standards, which may result in an active search for dangerous situations (such as competitive behaviour, or excessive speed). In general, all functions which are important in the safe operation of a motor vehicle can be affected by the levels of alcohol well below current legal limits operating in EU countries. Impairment through