Road safety A quarter of Swiss people drive after drinking alcohol

A quarter of Swiss people get behind the wheel after drinking alcohol. Alcohol is the cause of almost 12 percent of accidents involving personal injury, the Swiss Council for Accident Prevention (BFU) reported on Tuesday.

Last year, 506 people were seriously injured and 31 killed in road traffic accidents caused by alcohol, according to the press release. The situation has not improved in the last ten years.

An AAIB survey carried out in 2023 together with 14 police forces showed that 0.4 percent of drivers have a blood alcohol concentration that exceeds the legal limit of 0.5 per mille after consuming alcohol.

At night, one in seven drivers is under the influence of alcohol. Drivers under the age of 30 are generally more responsible than older drivers.

Just one glass of alcohol can impair driving ability, wrote the BFU. Attention and vision decrease and reaction time increases. These impairments can also occur without the driver being aware of them.

SDA