Reducing the Drink Driving Limit in Scotland Analysis of Consultation Responses

1 Introduction

Background

1.1 The Scotland Act 2012 provided amendments to the Scotland Act 1998 that included devolving power to prescribe the drink driving limits in Scotland to the Scottish Government. Other powers over drink driving such as being able to change the penalties for drink driving and introduce the capacity for the police to breath test anytime, anywhere have not been devolved and therefore remain the legislative responsibility of the UK Government.

1.2 On 6 September 2012, the Scottish Government published the consultation paper 'Reducing the Drink Driving Limit in Scotland'. The consultation sought views on the proposal to reduce the drink drive limit in Scotland and ran until 29 November 2012.

1.3 The consultation paper contained a series of five questions (one of which had two parts) relating to the proposal to reduce the existing blood / alcohol limit of 80mg / 100ml to 50 mg / 100ml and consequential equivalent reductions in the breath and urine limit.

Overview of responses

1.4 In total, 138 responses were received; 82 from individuals and 56 from organisations. As part of the analysis process, responses were assigned to groups. This enabled analysis of whether differences, or commonalities, appeared across the various different types of organisations and / or individuals that responded. The following table shows the numbers of responses in each group.

Table 1.1: Consultation responses

*Individuals who are expert in the field of drink driving law.

**One response from a Legal organisation merely stated they had no comments and so this response has not been included in this table or in any of the later counts or analysis.

1.5 A list of all those organisations who submitted a response to the consultation is included in Appendix 1.

Analysis and reporting

1.6 Two questions contained yes / no tick box options to allow respondents to indicate whether or not they agreed with a particular point. Results from these tick box questions are presented in table format at each relevant question.

1.7 Where respondents did not use the questionnaire format for their response but indicated within their text that they agreed or disagreed with a point, these have been included in the yes / no counts.

1.8 Comments given at each open question were examined and main themes, similar issues raised or comments made in a number of responses, were identified. In addition, we looked for sub-themes such as reasons for opinions, specific examples or explanations, alternative suggestions or other related comments.

1.9 A copy of the consultation questions is included at Appendix 2.

1.10 Comments from responses which did not follow the consultation questionnaire were assigned to the relevant question. For responses which followed the consultation questionnaire, any comments which did not relate to the specific questions posed were reassigned to the final question of the consultation in order that all similar comments could be analysed together.

1.11 The main themes were looked at in relation to respondent groups to ascertain whether any particular theme was specific to one particular group, or whether it appeared in responses across groups. When looking at group differences however, it must also be borne in mind that, where a specific opinion has been identified in relation to a particular group or groups, this does not indicate that other groups do not share this opinion, but rather that they have simply not commented on that particular point. Where no groups are specified in the commentary this means that the particular point was noted in responses from a variety of groups.

1.12 While the consultation gave all those who wished to comment an opportunity to do so, given the self-selecting nature of this type of exercise, any figures quoted here cannot be extrapolated to a wider population outwith the respondent sample.

1.13 The following chapters document the substance of the analysis and present the main views expressed in responses. Appropriate verbatim comments, from those who gave permission for their responses to be made public, are used throughout the report to illustrate themes or to provide extra detail for some specific points.