DRINK-DRIVING STATISTICS — CHARTS, DATA AND METHODOLOGY
Prepared: 16 October 2026

Suggested citation
Food Hygiene Certificate (2026). Drink Driving Statistics UK: Latest Data & Trends (2026). Prepared 16 October 2026. https://www.foodhygienecertificate.co.uk/blog/drink-driving-in-the-uk-statistics
When quoting a figure, also cite the underlying official publication. Preserve the data period, geography, measure and scope.

Files
fatalities-estimate.svg — central 2024 fatality estimate and 95% confidence interval.
fatalities-trend.svg — 2014–2024 fatality estimates and 95% confidence intervals, with pandemic years identified.
convictions-trend.svg — 2023–2025 convictions for the specified principal offence.
breath-tests.svg — comparable 2023–2024 screening totals and 2024 positive/refused count.
statistics.csv — 32 source-labelled records including headline figures, annual fatality estimates and intervals, demographic/timing comparisons and chart calculations.

Availability at 16 October 2026
The latest dedicated DfT drink-drive casualty release was published 30 July 2026 and covers 2024 Great Britain. The same release summarises Ministry of Justice convictions through 2025 in England and Wales. The Home Office roads-policing release was published 19 March 2026 and covers 2024. Its official collection, updated 1 October 2026, does not list a 2025 roads-policing release. A newer publication date must not be mistaken for a newer observation year.

Methods and scope
1. Single-year fatality chart: 220 is the central estimate, with a 95% confidence interval of 190–250. The chart uses a linear 0–300 axis, a teal point for the estimate and an amber interval. In the single-year chart, the interval is statistical uncertainty, not a time series or a minimum/maximum observed across years. DfT says the change from the 2023 central estimate of 260 is not statistically significant. The absence of a significant change does not prove the underlying risk was unchanged.
2. Collision definition: reported personal-injury road collisions involving at least one driver or rider above the legal alcohol limit. These are involvement statistics, not a finding that alcohol caused every collision. They cover Great Britain, excluding Northern Ireland, and not all unreported collisions. Non-fatal figures are severity-adjusted. DfT rounds casualty and collision estimates to the nearest 10. Killed-or-seriously-injured figures include deaths; total casualties include both. Do not add these overlapping groups.
3. Convictions: 29,532 in 2023, 27,221 in 2024 and 25,973 in 2025. The bars share a zero-based scale to 35,000. DfT's MoJ series concerns driving or attempting to drive a motor vehicle with alcohol above the prescribed limit, when this was the principal offence attracting the heaviest penalty. It is not every alcohol-related offence. Being in charge and failing to provide a specimen are distinct offences. Change in 2025 = (25,973 / 27,221 - 1) x 100 = -4.6%, rounded to one decimal. Court outcomes do not directly measure underlying drink-driving prevalence.
4. Breath testing: 167,384 tests in 2023 and 167,095 in 2024, from the same 26 police forces. Bars share a zero-based scale to 200,000. Change = (167,095 / 167,384 - 1) x 100 = -0.2%, rounded to one decimal. The Home Office excludes 17 of the 43 England and Wales forces because of data-quality or recording issues. This subset may not represent all England and Wales. Do not join these values to earlier published all-force totals or extend this comparable series before 2023.
5. Positive or refused: 24,823 tests in 2024, 15% of the 167,095 tests when rounded to a whole percentage. Tests are not necessarily unique people, and positive/refused screening outcomes are not convictions. Who is tested depends on police activity and grounds for requesting tests, so positivity is not a prevalence estimate for all drivers.
6. December denominators: 17% means December's share of all tests in 2024; 10% means the positive/refused share of December tests. Both are source-rounded. These are different denominators and must not be confused.
7. Dates and geography: data_period gives the year observed, source_publication_date the cited release date. Blank interval cells mean no interval is reproduced here, not zero uncertainty. Great Britain casualty estimates and England/Wales enforcement or court data do not describe identical populations. Do not calculate conviction rates by dividing one series by another.
8. Subsequent DfT 2025 road-safety-factor analysis uses police officers' factor assessments and different coverage. It is not a replacement for the dedicated over-the-legal-limit casualty series. The latter's 2025 release is planned for July 2027. DfT deferred a proposed new estimation method to that release, pending validation; this pack does not describe it as already implemented.

9. Fatality trend: the current RAS2001 table supplies the 2014–2024 central estimates and their 95% confidence intervals. The chart uses all eleven annual observations, a full zero-based 0–400 vertical axis, teal central estimates and amber intervals. Values are not reconstructed from earlier publications. The 2014 current-series interval is 210–270; an older publication used a different interval, so this pack consistently uses the July 2026 table. A shaded band identifies 2020–2021, when pandemic restrictions changed travel. Do not treat those years as a normal traffic baseline or infer statistically significant year-to-year changes from the central estimates alone. The 2023 CSV row now includes its verified 230–290 interval.
10. Sex composition: DfT Table 7 reports males as 80% of drink-drivers in reported collisions versus 69% of drivers in all reported collisions, among records where sex is known. The comparison excludes pedal cyclists and horse riders. These are the composition of two collision-involved driver groups, not the percentage of male licence holders who drink-drive. They concern drivers/riders, not the sex distribution of casualties.
11. Age and exposure: RAS2022 specifically covers collisions involving a CAR drink-driver. The 2024 rate is 85 collisions per billion miles driven by under-20 car drivers, against 15 per billion miles across all ages. The all-ages category includes unknown age. Do not describe the rate as an all-vehicle measure or infer that under-20 drivers have the largest absolute collision count: the same table records 230 under-20 collisions versus 720 for ages 40–49. Those counts are context here, not additional plotted records.
12. Time of day: DfT section 5.2 reports 9% of drink-drive collisions between 11pm and midnight and 1% between 11am and noon. Both denominators are all reported drink-drive collisions in 2024. These do not describe the percentage of every collision in those hours that involved drink-driving, and they are not mileage- or journey-adjusted risk estimates.

Current legal context (reviewed 16 October 2026)
GOV.UK gives England, Wales and Northern Ireland limits as 80 mg alcohol per 100 ml blood and 35 micrograms per 100 ml breath; Scotland is 50 mg and 22 micrograms respectively. These are not safe-drink allowances. A DfT consultation opened on 7 January 2026 and closed on 11 May 2026. Its proposals to change England/Wales limits are not the currently enacted limits, and the closed consultation does not establish an implementation date. This pack contains no chart that presents proposals as law.

Underlying sources
Department for Transport, RAS2001 current historical series, Casualties worksheet. Published 30 July 2026.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6a69128c16bc92f51e1a428f/ras2001.ods
Department for Transport, RAS2022, car collisions by driver age. Published 30 July 2026.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6a873fb3ef5cd603c26db21f/ras2022.ods
Department for Transport, Reported road casualties in Great Britain, drink-drive collisions: 2024. Published 30 July 2026. Sections 1–3 and Drink-drive convictions data.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casualties-in-great-britain-drink-drive-collisions-2024/reported-road-casualties-in-great-britain-drink-drive-collisions-2024
Home Office, Police powers and procedures: Roads policing to December 2024. Published 19 March 2026. Breath tests section.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-powers-and-procedures-roads-policing-to-december-2024/police-powers-and-procedures-roads-policing-to-december-2024
Home Office, Police powers and procedures, England and Wales collection. Last updated 1 October 2026.
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/police-powers-and-procedures-england-and-wales
Ministry of Justice, Criminal Justice Statistics Quarterly: December 2025. Published 30 April 2026; updated 29 June 2026.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/criminal-justice-statistics-quarterly-december-2025
DfT, forthcoming publications (dedicated 2025 drink-drive release planned July 2027).
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/forthcoming-publications/department-for-transport-forthcoming-publications
GOV.UK, The drink drive limit.
https://www.gov.uk/drink-drive-limit
DfT, Proposed changes to penalties for motoring offences. Published 7 January 2026; updated 16 February 2026; consultation closed 11 May 2026.
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/proposed-changes-to-penalties-for-motoring-offences

Reuse
Charts are an original presentation of the cited public statistics. Cite the official sources as well as this chart pack. Government data are available under the Open Government Licence v3.0, except where otherwise stated. The SVGs contain accessible titles and descriptions. All active source links in SVGs use rel="nofollow noopener"; CSV and plain-text URLs are data, not HTML anchors.
