Dr Declan Bedford presented his research on drink driving in Ireland to a special one-day conference in Dublin organised by the Road Safety Authority. He said more than a third of drivers killed in crashes are not tested for alcohol and drugs.
He told the conference in Dublin that there was no level of alcohol in the blood at which driving was safe.
A consultant in public health medicine, Dr Bedford carried out an analysis for the HSE of 995 crashes between 2003 and 2005 in which more than 1,000 people were killed.
He discovered that in a third of crashes, alcohol was not a factor; in about another third those killed tested positive for alcohol; and in another third an alcohol test was either not carried out or not available.
In total four out of ten drivers who died were over the legal blood alcohol limit.
When Dr Bedford carried out an analysis excluding the percentage where no test was available, he discovered that most of the drivers who were killed had alcohol in their system.
He also found that the deaths of one in four pedestrians were related to their own alcohol intake.
The conference coincides with the first day of Irish Road Safety Week and European Safety Day.
Source: RTE News, 13/10/2008
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