In the UK, the COVID-19 pandemic lasted from March 2020 to February 2022, as the final restrictions were lifted. Within this time, laws fluctuated as public lockdowns were enforced and the population were encouraged not to socialise in indoor spaces, or in large groups.

Due to the lack of need to travel, the number of total road users decreased. Despite this, there were still many reports of drink driving incidents as, in 2020, there were between 190 and 250 deaths due to accidents where at least one driver was over the limit.

This report outlines the drink driving trends over the past couple of years, suggesting reasons for the figures in relation to context.

What factors could be affecting incident numbers?

When assessing incident statistics, it is important to first understand what context to compare the trends with; people might be travelling for various reasons such as work or social occasions. As the government mandated that all work would be done from home for non-essential workers, this erases the likelihood of travel for this reason.

One of the biggest factors to consider when looking at recent statistics is that the way Kills or Serious Incidents (KSIs) were reported was changed between 2019 and 2020. Due to this change, there were an estimated 6,400 KSIs in 2019, but only 1,500 in 2020. This is a big change, and might not only be due to the pandemic, but what is classed as a KSI. This happened previously as, between 2009 and 2019, injuries that might have been originally considered minor were treated as more serious under the new rules. This draws an interesting conclusion that highlights the fact that statistics such as these can be manipulated and should not be treated as concrete evidence.

In terms of social restrictions, these are more difficult to police as the rules are easier to break, and might be more tempting to people who suddenly have a lot more free time. Road users who are travelling to social events might anticipate the emptiness of the roads, deciding to consume alcohol thinking there will be less risk to themselves or others. The figures we can see now clearly show this was not the case. Road users might also be travelling faster for the same reasons, thinking that the roads will be emptier.

These factors could be causes for the accidents reported. Even if there were less road users in total, the drivers who were travelling may have increased the danger of the roads, making up for the decrease and resulting in similar numbers to previous years.

Incidents in 2020

According to a study done in 2021, approximately 85,000 people are convicted of offences relating to drink driving in England and Wales, 85% of which are male.

In 2019, there were between 210 and 250 reported deaths from incidents where one driver was over the limit. Despite showing a definite decrease, this is not a big change from 2020’s figures, considering that everyone in the country was under complete national lockdown for four months. Additionally, drink driving incidents only made up 5% of all reported road accidents in 2020, suggesting that there were still more people on the road than there should have been by law.

However, another source states that there were 1,460 reported road deaths in 2020, which is a drop of 17% compared to 2019. Analysis of this data reveals that, despite the decrease in overall accidents, drink driving has remained similar, so the percentage should have increased. This also aligns with the 23,500 KSIs in 2020, which dropped 22% from 2019.

This is problematic for a number of reasons, as it makes it difficult to assess the precise impact of the pandemic on drink driving incidents. Many of the government sources are not specifically related to this and, we can draw conclusions from their statistics, but it is impossible to generate concrete evidence.

While it is difficult to know exactly how many road users there are at a time, in March it was recorded that there were 38.3 million licensed road vehicles in the UK, which was a slight decrease from the previous year. This was the first time the number of road vehicles have declined since 1994. We can use this data to assume that there were less people on the roads, as vehicles that are not being used might be sold.

Incidents After 2020

Despite the small change, UK government figures theorised that road traffic accidents would decrease after 2020, and they did, with accidents of all severities down by 14% in 2022 from 2019.

Over the course of the pandemic, Road Traffic Collisions (RTCs) dropped a significant 50% in at least 12 countries. As the most important factors affecting RTCs are mobility, crowding and traffic congestion, these figures suggest that there were less people on the roads, which could mean that the pandemic did have an overall effect on driving incidents in the long term.

The UK government website advises that the pandemic is likely to have impacted the number of road traffic accidents, but as the data shows, it is difficult to judge this due to a lack of clarity and untraceable factors. What we know for sure is that there were still a large number of road users in a time when there shouldn’t have been, and that these drivers still caused accidents at a rate mostly consistent with pre-pandemic figures.