Drink driving a major safety problem according to 94% of EU citizens
The European Commission has published a survey that ascertains the awareness of, and attitudes towards, road safety issues among citizens of the 27 EU Member States.
The report shows that in all Member States, except Ireland, 94% of EU citizens consider the issue of people driving under the influence of alcohol to be a major road safety problem in their country, followed by drivers exceeding speed limits (78%) and drivers/passengers not wearing seatbelts (74%).
Individual country results revealed that in all Member States, except Ireland, more than 8 in 10 interviewees felt that people driving under the influence of alcohol constituted a major road safety problem in their country. Furthermore, in about a third of the countries, virtually all respondents felt this way (97%-99% in Romania, Hungary, Malta, Poland, France, Cyprus, Greece, Bulgaria, Spain and Italy). Citizens in almost all Member States had rather similar views regarding the seriousness of this road safety problem – in 25 Member States, the largest proportion of respondents stated that this behaviour was a major threat to road safety in their country.
The variations between individual countries, concerning the four remaining road safety problems, were more pronounced than in the case of drink-driving.
The situation in Ireland was a clear outlier with just 62% of respondents regarding drink-driving as a major threat to road safety in their country and 31% simply regarding it as a minor problem. In addition, 1 in 20 Irish respondents felt that this was not a problem at all. Two explanations can be formulated to explain this result: (1) respondents in Ireland were less likely to perceive drink-driving as constituting problem behaviour, and/or (2) stricter laws against driving after drinking alcohol, and an intensification of enforcement of these laws, have led to people perceiving that the problem is no longer so serious in Ireland[1]. The former explanation, however, seems less plausible: in Special Eurobarometer “EU citizens' attitudes towards alcohol”, conducted in October 2009, Irish citizens appeared to have a rather strict attitude, compared to citizens from other Member States, when it came to judging people who drove under the influence of alcohol[2]
Perceptions about whether governments should take more action to reduce the risks associated with drink driving were not necessarily linked to actions already taken at the time of the survey. For example, Polish and
Swedish respondents were as likely to think that their government should do more in this regard; however, in
Sweden, the number of roadside police checks for alcohol per 1,000 inhabitants is among the highest in the EU, whereas in Poland the number is one of the lowest.
Click here to download the full Eurobarometer report
[1] For example, Ireland has introduced mandatory alcohol testing in July 2006 which was followed by a 22% drop in total road deaths in the first 12 months. (see: http://www.etsc.eu/documents/copy_of_05.05%20-%20PIN%20Flash%2016.pdf)
[2] For example, 29% of Irish respondents said that a driver should not drink alcohol at all when driving; compared to an EU average of 15%. At the same time, 4% of Irish respondents said a person could still drive after consuming more than two drinks; this value was 10 percentage points below the EU average (14%). (see: http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_331_en.pdf)