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Spain looks to reduce drink driving limit
Plans are being considered in Spain to reduce the blood-alcohol limit for motorists as part of the government’s plans to reduce deaths on the road.
Head of the interior ministry Fernando Grande-Marlaska has outlined how the government is planning to lower the limit to 0.2mg of alcohol per litre of blood, which is less than half the current legal level in the country.
At present, the penalties in Spain depend on the level of alcohol in the blood. For those who have between 0.25 and 0.5mg per litre are given a fine of €500 and four points on their driving licence.
For more severe cases, there can be a ban of up to four years on your licence and more than six months in prison.
Speaking at a European meeting, Grande-Marlaska said that its society “is ready” for tighter regulations and bringing the limit down to a maximum limit of 0.2mg/l for blood and 0.1 for exhaled air for all drivers.
The new rules would put Spain in line with a number of other European countries, including Iceland, Poland and Sweden, but would make it four times stricter than the current rules in the UK.
Grande-Marlaska said he wanted to make the move following a call from the country’s National Road Safety Council, and the “mayhem on the roads” this summer, which had left 241 people dead, with more than half of the road traffic collisions involving drugs or alcohol as a determining factor”.
Although figures have fallen in recent years, some 1,815 people were killed in the year 2022 and half of these were caused by a driver who was under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
The new rules would mean that it would essentially be impossible to drink even a small glass of beer or wine and be under the limit. A single 330ml bottle of beer would produce 0.3mg/l in the blood of an average man who weighs 70kg (approximately 11 stone) and 0.2 in a man who is 80kg (12 stone).
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