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Powers To Breathalyse At Random 'Should Be Given To Police'

A road safety group has claimed that the police should be given the power to breathalyse drivers at random. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) said that recent figures about young drink-drivers underlined the urgent need for a reduction in the drink-dive limit by almost a half and for police to breathalyse drivers anywhere and at any time.

The society also wants to reduce the limit on the amount of alcohol a person can consume before driving to be lowered. This comes forty years after the introduction of breath-testing for drivers.

The head of road safety operations at the organisation, added that studies show such a hard line against the act could save lives.

Before the introduction of the breath test, there were around 13,000 serious drink-related accidents a year. By 1987, twenty years later, the figure had dropped to 6,800 and a further twenty years after that it had fallen to 2,500. This clearly shows how many lives have been saved. But, RoSPA are insisting that the legal limit should be lowered from 80mg per 100ml of blood to 50mg.

"Between 50mg and 80mg you are between two and two-and-a-half times more likely to crash and six times more likely to be involved in a fatal accident," he said.

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