Drunk driving causes 20% road accident deaths in Finland

Drunk driving still remains a serious problem in Finland as it is responsible for a fifth of all deaths by road accidents, on an average, that take place in Finland a year, Finnish Road Safety Council (Liikenneturva) and police officials said.

“Drunk driving is still a major problem in Finland,” said Pasi Anteroinen, communications planner of Liikenneturva.

In 2020, 50 people died and 500 others became wounded because of drunk driving. Four in every five people who died were men and a third of the deceased were aged below 24 years.

Superintendent Matti Vuorinen of the Central Finland Police Department also agreed that driving while intoxicated with alcohol or other drugs remains a serious problem.

Pasi Anteroinen said that the relationship with alcohol-impaired driving is quite different these days than it was 30 years ago.

He said that campaigns include target group profiling with a focus on young drivers and a combination of factual and emotional education.

Referring to a recent global survey by the ESRA, or E-Survey of Road Users’ Attitudes, project, Anteroinen said that Finns have in general a stricter view against drunk driving than residents in other countries.

Another survey that Liikenneturva conducted in 2020 showed that nine in every ten people in Finland think that it is important to intervene if they see another person trying to drive while being intoxicated.

He, however, said that deaths caused by alcohol-induced accidents and injuries have decreased by almost a third in the past decade.

Anteroinen also suggested stricter measures to tackle the issue of drunk driving.

“One such option is to introduce longer driving bans on those who have been caught driving while being intoxicated. The second option could be to use alcolocks more widely,” the Liikenneturva planner said.

“A credible traffic control is the basis to maintain traffic safety,” Matti Vuorinen said, adding that the police carry out regular monitoring to find intoxicated drivers throughout the year.

He also said that there are especially planned themes for strengthened controls, for example, during summer holidays when traffic to and from summer cottages is heavy.

The number of people seriously intoxicated has remained at almost the same level since 2017. People who are seriously intoxicated are those who have a minimum of 120mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood, or a minimum of 0.53mg per liter of exhaled air.

When it comes to the regular form of driving while being intoxicated with limits of at least 50mg in the blood or 0.22mg in the exhaled air, the number has increased steadily from 2017 to 2020.

Drivers can also be guilty of driving while being intoxicated when they are under the influence of other drugs. About a half of all reported cases are related to non-alcohol drugs.

Finland introduced the so-called Vision Zero into its road safety work in 1995. The concept follows the goal that no one should die or be seriously injured in traffic. Following this goal, Liikenneturva has carried out different campaigns against driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs.