Review of effectiveness of laws limiting blood alcohol concentration levels to reduce alcohol-related road injuries and deaths. Report on behalf of the Department for Transport.

The review aimed to assess how effective the blood alcohol concentration (BAC) laws are at reducing road traffic injuries and deaths. It also assessed the potential impact of lowering the BAC limit from 0.08 to 0.05. The review examined: • drink-driving patterns and the associated risk of being injured or killed in a road traffic accident • how BAC limits and related legislative measures have changed drink-drinking behaviour and helped reduce alcohol-related road traffic injuries and deaths • models estimating the potential impact of lowering the BAC limit from 0.08 to 0.05 in England and Wales • lessons from other countries on using BAC laws as part of overall alcohol control and road safety policies. A conceptual framework was used to show how, in theory, a law limiting drivers’ BAC levels could lead to changes in how much drivers drink and the number of alcohol-related road traffic injuries and deaths. The review of evidence tested these theoretical links and the robustness of the underlying assumptions. The review was conducted in accordance with the methods outlined in NICE’s ‘Methods for development of NICE public health guidance (second edition, 2009)’ available from http://www.nice.org.uk/phmethods (Author/publisher)