A prominent road safety campaigner has backed a call by the AA for an alcohol levy to help pay for the cost of alcohol-related injuries.
Clive Matthew-Wilson, editor of the car review website dogandlemon.com, says:
“Multiple studies have shown that alcohol consumption by high risk groups can be reduced by raising the cost.”
“According to multiple credible studies, alcohol is the number one harmful drug*. In 2012 alone, alcohol was a contributing factor in 73 fatal crashes, 331 serious injury crashes and 933 minor injury crashes.”
Matthew-Wilson says young people are especially at risk.
“Since the alcohol purchase age was lowered, there has been a 21% increased chance of drunk drivers aged 18 or 19 being involved in car crashes that cause death or injury.”
“Aside from the enormous human costs, the financial costs to the nation are staggering. The New Zealand government recently estimated that alcohol-related road injuries and fatalities cost $446 million each year.”
"No one's talking about stopping people having a few drinks and enjoying themselves. What we need to do is to discourage people from abusing alcohol and also to make sure the alcohol industry pays its share of the social costs.”
* Researchers led by Professor David Nutt, a former chief drugs adviser to the British government, asked drug-harm experts to rank 20 drugs (legal and illegal) on 16 measures of harm to the user and to wider society, such as damage to health, drug dependency, economic costs and crime. Alcohol is the most harmful drug in Britain, scoring 72 out of a possible 100, far more damaging than heroin (55) or crack cocaine (54). It is the most harmful to others by a wide margin, and is ranked fourth behind heroin, crack, and methamphetamine (crystal meth) for harm to the individual.
