From the Guardian today:

Tougher rules on drink-driving, eye tests for older motorists and automatic emergency braking in new cars will be mandated by the government in an attempt to significantly reduce casualties on Britain’s roads. The first road safety strategy in more than a decade aims to save thousands of lives with a range of measures, from training and technology to stiffer penalties for offenders.

The proposals, to be announced on Wednesday, seek to reduce fatalities and serious injuries on Britain’s roads by 65% by 2035. The number of deaths has declined since the 1970s but that improvement slowed around 2010, with 22 European countries making better progress than the UK since then, according to the Department for Transport. The government will consult on lowering the drink-drive limit in England and Wales, which has remained unchanged since 1967 and is the highest in Europe, at 35 micrograms of alcohol per 100ml of breath. It could be cut to 22 micrograms, in line with the limit in Scotland since 2014.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/06/government-signals-tougher-motoring-rules-to-reduce-casualties-on-britains-roads

Scotland introduced a lower drink-drive limit in 2012, 14 years ago!

We’re all in favour of reducing RTAs but how urgent is the need across the 4 nations? How does the rate of accidents compare in the 4 UK nations?

Collisions per million population:

• Northern Ireland – 2 501 (!)
• England – 1 579
• Wales – 941
• Scotland – 764 (!)

Sources below.

These are huge variations, given our far worse weather, reflecting as they must government investment and policy-making on road safety, policing staffing levels and wider factors such as alcohol and drug treatment, job creation and poverty-reduction.

Scotland has by far the safest roads and drivers in the UK. Critics will no doubt claim that Scotland is more rural but much of our population and the drivers among them live in the central belt which is only exceeded in terms of density, by London, West Midlands, Greater Manchester and Merseyside.

In 2012, Conservative MSP Alex Johnstone said bizarrely and suggesting extreme cynicism by police:

A lower limit may raise the spectre that the most productive place to enforce the drink-driving limit might be in a supermarket car park on a Sunday morning, where the hard-working mother who had one glass of of wine too many after she got the kids to bed on a Saturday night may still find herself slightly above that lower limit on the Sunday morning.

Sources:

1. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casualties-great-britain-annual-report-2024
2. https://www.gov.wales/police-recorded-road-collisions-2024-html
3. https://www.transport.gov.scot/publication/key-reported-road-casualties-scotland-2024/
4. https://www.psni.police.uk/sites/default/files/2025-06/2024%20Detailed%20Trends%20Report.pdf
5. https://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/2022-reports/
6. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates
7. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-20166468