Chart: Police crackdowns catch few drink drivers

Crime and justice chart of the week
Author

Matt Ashby

Published

20 Jan 2020

Police routinely breathalyse drivers they suspect have been drinking, but also carry out an annual Christmas crackdown, breath-testing more than three times as many drivers in December as in other months. However, only about 1.6% of these extra tests catch a drink driver, compared to about 14% of routine tests.

larger image | annotated R code to produce this chart

Data source: Home Office, 2019

Notes

‘Extra’ tests associated with the annual Chirstmas crackdown on drink driving were calculated as the mean number of tests conducted in December each year minus the mean number of tests conducted in other months.