Skip to main content

Drink drive law enforcement yields results in Europe

Many drivers in Europe will be wishing they had been more careful following the results of a Pan-European police crackdown on drink driving. The European TISPOL police body carried out an enforcement campaign in June 2015 that resulted in 17,006 drink-drive offences being detected from 1,124,163 roadside breath tests. Motorists in 28 European countries were also checked for drugs, and 2,764 offences were detected. The results equate to approximately one offence in every 65 driver breathalysed and give cause
August 19, 2015 Read time: 1 min
Many drivers in Europe will be wishing they had been more careful following the results of a Pan-European police crackdown on drink driving. The European 4753 TISPOL police body carried out an enforcement campaign in June 2015 that resulted in 17,006 drink-drive offences being detected from 1,124,163 roadside breath tests. Motorists in 28 European countries were also checked for drugs, and 2,764 offences were detected. The results equate to approximately one offence in every 65 driver breathalysed and give cause for concern as they represent an increase over the figures gathered during similar campaigns in 2014 and 2013. Like-for-like figures from 2014 show 18,391 offences from 1,168,631 breath tests; around one in every 63 drivers tested. And for 2013 the figures show 14,557 offences from 869,473 breath tests; around one in every 59 drivers tested.

During the week of this operation, officers also detected and dealt with offences connected with illegal immigration and human trafficking (116), drug-related crimes (598), firearms crimes (49), property crimes (136), wanted persons (181), and 1,436 other crimes.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Ireland and Malta police drink-drive crackdowns
    January 16, 2014
    As part of Ireland's Operation Artery, police officers staged a number of Super 'Mandatory Alcohol Testing' (MAT) checkpoints in a crackdown on drink-driving in Dublin over the weekend of 11-12 January 2014. In addition to intoxicated driving, general road offences were also targeted, including use of seatbelts, vehicle lighting, tyre condition, driving licences, insurance and road tax. Four separate Super MAT one hour checkpoints occurred simultaneously between the hours of 11.30pm on the 11 January and
  • Drink driving concern for Europe
    November 24, 2015
    Drink drive enforcement still has issues in Europe, according to Pan-European police body TISPOL. It is estimated that 230 (14%) of the 1,713 road deaths in the UK are due to drinking and driving. Meanwhile drink driving is the cause of around 5,000 road deaths in Europe. For England, Wales and Northern Ireland the limit for driving is still 80mg (0.8) of alcohol/100ml of blood. Scotland reduced its limit to 50mg (0.5) of alcohol/100ml of blood in December 2014, bringing it into line with most other Europea
  • UK developing plan to tackle driving under the influence of drugs
    March 22, 2012
    The UK Government is now working on a plan to address the road safety issues caused by driving under the influence of drugs. A panel of experts has been set up to evaluate the levels of various illegal drugs in the bloodstream that would affect driving ability.
  • Random roadside tests on drivers have been carried out on drivers in Switzerland
    January 15, 2013
    Police in the Swiss border city of Basel recently carried out random breath tests on drivers to check for alcohol use. The tests use conventional technology for detecting whether drivers are over the limit for alcohol. The measures are considered highly effective in providing a deterrent to drivers for getting behind the wheel after drinking. A pan-European TISPOL operation last month saw police conduct 1,203,095 roadside breath tests for alcohol, of which 13,236 were positive. Motorists were also checked f