“Last year no new TV adverts were commissioned and very few broadcast slots were bought.”
Don’t quite understand, Gromit. I don’t recall seeing any adverts on the telly telling me not to murder people, not to commit armed robbery nor to rape any women. But I’m still expected to obey these laws. By your logic the result of similar “penny pinching” for those offences is also likely to result in dead or injured people. How is it that drink-driving needs an advertising campaign to help ensure that we don’t transgress? If somebody is going to drink-drive they will do so. An advert on the TV is hardly likely to dissuade them (if for no other reason they will probably be in the pub when it’s broadcast).
These figures just published may show an increase on 2011, but taken in context they are not too bad. In 2001 560 people were killed and 2,790 seriously injured in alcohol related road accidents. By 2011 these numbers had gone down to 280 (according to the government figures, not 230 as in the BBC report) and 1,290 - a reduction of more than 50%.
Drink driving offences reached a peak in 1988 with about 105,000 convictions. This dropped to a low of around 76,000 in 2001 but has been on the increase since then and now stands at around 95,000.. So I don’t believe it’s correct to assume the police have taken their eye off the ball. Since 2001 (when there were low convictions and high casualties) convictions have gone up and casualties have decreased. This would seem to indicate that drink driving is now more likely to result in a conviction and less likely to result in a death or serious injury. But this is a wide assumption and does not take into account reletive detection rates and many other factors. However this report on alcohol related incidents shines a bit of light on the bare figures.
http://assets.dft.gov.uk/statistics/releases/road-accidents-and-safety-annual-report-2011/rrcgb2011-03.pdf