New data shows drink drive accidents in the UK are falling, but the proportion of ‘morning after’ drink drive accidents has reached an all-time high, calling for extra diligence during the Christmas party season.

Analysis of the latest official Drink Drive statistics by AlcoSense Breathalysers show in the past decade there has been a nearly 60% increase in the proportion of morning after ‘drink drive’ accidents, while 18.2% of all accidents caused by drink driving in 2010 occurred between 5am and 1pm. This compares with only 11.4% in 2000 and only 6.9% in 1990.

While the proportion of drink drive accidents occurring in the afternoon and evenings have fallen by just over 10% over the past two decades, the proportion of morning after accidents has been steadily rising suggesting the problem is merely being shifted forward to the next day.

AlcoSense managing director Hunter Abbott said: “Think! has greatly educated the public about the risks of drink driving and it now perceived as unacceptable to drink drive the same evening. People still believe however that a few hours’ sleep will get rid of all of the alcohol in their system but it is surprisingly easy to still be over the limit the ‘morning after’.

“For example if you drank four pints of medium strong beer or four large glasses of wine between 9pm and midnight, it could take as long as 14.8 hours for the alcohol to leave your system. Therefore you could easily still be over the limit at 11am the following day.”

AlcoSense is a mobile phone sized personal breathalyser which aims to tell the user when the alcohol has passed from their system the morning after and can be used again and again.
 

For further analysis and insight on the risks to fleets of morning after drink driving see this week's Fleet News.