The UK Government is consulting on lowering the legal drink drive limit in England and Wales, which hasn’t changed since 1967 and is the highest in Europe.
Lowering the legal limit will reduce road collisions and save lives. There is clear evidence that a person's ability to drive is affected after consuming any amount of alcohol.
We support reducing the limit to:
- 9µg (microgrammes of alcohol)/100ml (millilitres) breath
- 20mg (milligrammes of alcohol)/100ml (millilitres) blood or 0.02% BAC (blood alcohol content)
This is essentially a 'zero-tolerance' limit, which allows for low but traceable levels of alcohol which may exist in someone’s body, and for minimal presence of alcohol, like if someone has used mouthwash or certain medications.
Read more about drink driving and the 0.02% BAC limit.
The consultation seeks views from all road users. Help us call for a lower drink drive limit and respond to the consultation before 11:59pm on 11 May 2026.
The consultation looks at road safety and goes beyond drink driving, asking further questions on topics like seat belt usage and use of illegal number plates. We will only be responding to the questions relevant to our work.
What you respond to and how much information you provide is completely up to you and how much time you have. We have provided different template responses to support you.
If you only have 10 minutes to help, please respond to the following key questions:
5. In your view, should the legal alcohol limit for drink and drive offences in England and Wales:
☒ Be lowered
6. What legal limit do you think is appropriate?
0.02% BAC
8. In your view, should the legal alcohol limit for drink and drive offences in England and Wales be lower for novice drivers than for other drivers?
☒ Yes
9. What legal limit do you think is appropriate for novice drivers?
0.02% BAC
10. Why do you think this legal alcohol limit is appropriate?
There is enough evidence to support lowering the legal alcohol limit to 0.02% BAC for all drivers. However, if the government instead chooses to lower the limit to 0.05% BAC for all drivers, the limit should be lowered to 0.02% for new private drivers, for 3 years after passing their test.
A note on question 9: We are calling for the legal limit to be 0.02% BAC for everyone. However, because of the way consultation responses are counted, we are concerned that if we select “No”, if the Government chooses to lower the limit to 0.05% for all drivers, that would be a missed opportunity to lower it to 0.02% for novice drivers. According to the Department for Transport, in 2024, around a fifth of all KSI casualties from collisions involving cars were in collisions which involved a young car driver, while young male car drivers aged 17 to 24 are 4 times as likely to be killed or seriously injured compared with all car drivers aged 25 or over.
If you have 20 minutes to help, please respond to all the relevant multiple choice questions we are responding to, with some key text responses.
If you have 30 minutes to help, please respond to all the relevant multiple choice and open-ended questions.
If you would like to, you can include any personal experience you have related to drink driving.
