Road Traffic Accidents
Statistics for Great Britain for the year 2003 show that there were a total of 214,030 reported road traffic accidents involving personal injury. Of these, 33,707 were serious injuries, and 3,508 were fatalities.
Drink drive casualties accounted for 5% of slight casualties, 6% of all serious injuries, and 13% of all road accident deaths.
Blood Alcohol Levels
Based on the blood alcohol levels the drivers who were killed in road accident in 1999: 20% of those tested were over the legal limit (80mg/100ml). 3% were approximately double the limit (150mg/100ml) and 2% were two and half times over the limit (200mg/100ml).
Mobile Phones
It’s estimated that of the 3508 road accident deaths, approx 100 of those deaths resulted in some way from the use of a mobile phone ( albeit it’s not clear if the resulting death is just that suffered by the recalcitrant user, and / or to the 2nd & 2rd parties ).
Source: Road Casualties Great Britain: 2003, Annual Report DfT- available from RoSPA
Air Traffic Accidents
During 2003 there were a total of 106 casualties ( of all levels ) caused by aviation accidents in UK airspace. Of these there were 21 fatalities.
I.e. 89 casualties were caused by UK registered aircraft in UK airspace, of which 15 were fatalities, and 17 were caused by foreign aircraft in UK airspace of which there were 6 fatalities.
Source: Transport Statistics Great Britain 2004 Edition
So lets just have a look at these numbers.
I.e. reading between the lines, one can see that 13 people in 100 who are killed on the UK’s roads died with some level of ‘excess’ of alcohol in their veins – but wherein it’s not stated if those who died did so as a result of their own actions, or of somebody else’s.
However, on the flip side, 87 people in 100 died on the UK’s roads as a result of some other reason ( one that is
not drink related - so go figure ! ) and hence my earlier point, i.e
the remaining 87% of people who die on the UK’s roads do so NOT as a result of anything to do with D&D !.
Please don’t get me wrong, I’m not promoting D&D ( indeed I’m just about teetotal in that respect myself ) but lets at least separate hysteria & hype from the facts.
Ok, they guy in this instance screwed-up and will pay the price of his actions - but let's not get to high and mighty about it all, shall we - to err, is human after all, is it not ?!