Slight fall in roadside breathalyser test figures in 2024

New figures show there was a slight decrease in the number of roadside breath tests delivered by police officers during 2024.

The Home Office figures show police across 26 forces carried out 167,095 roadside breath tests in England and Wales during 2024, compared with 167,384 tests in 2023 – a slight decrease of 0.2%.

Road safety campaigners say the figures raise fresh concerns about drink-drive enforcement at a time when alcohol-related crashes continue to kill hundreds of people every year.

DfT data shows that drink-drive collisions claimed 260 lives in 2023, while 6,310 people were injured or killed by motorists over the legal alcohol limit.

The Home Office figures also reveal that nearly 25,000 motorists either failed a breath test or refused to provide a sample in 2024 – around 15% of all drivers tested.

Fifteen years ago police conducted nearly 650,000 breath tests annually. However the figures released today are not directly comparable, as they exclude 17 of the 43 forces in England and Wales due to changes in data recording.

Testing levels in England and Wales also lag far behind many European countries, with just five breath tests per 1,000 inhabitants compared with 18 per 1,000 in Ireland and 109 in France.