During the months of December 1964 and January 1965 coroners in England and Wales and Procurators Fiscal in Scotland were asked to assist the RRL in an investigation of the role of alcohol in road accidents by arranging whenever possible for a test for blood alcohol to be carried out fatal road accident casualties aged 12 years or over (16 Yeats or over in Scotland) who died in, or within 12 hours the accident- 733 returns were received for England and Wales and 71 for Scotland in which tests for alcohol had been made. These data are analysed to show the alcohol levels found in the blood of the various classes of road user fatalities. The analysis also shows how the levels of alcohol found are apparently dependent on other recorders factors such as when and where the accident occurred, the age and sex of the casualty and the type of accident in which the fatality occurred. The present report gives in detail the analysis from which certain results have already been quoted in Road Research Technical Paper no. 79.
Abstract