The impact of alcohol and drugs
You risk causing death and serious injury to yourself and other people if you drive under the influence of alcohol or drugs, both legal and illegal.

Once absorbed into your bloodstream, alcohol enters your vital organs, including your brain. The result is slowed reactions, dulled judgment and vision, all of which impair your ability to drive. Drugs have a similar effect. Both alcohol and drugs can also increase the risks of fatigue.

At 80mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood (the current legal limit for drivers 20 years or older) you're still twice as likely to have a crash as a driver with a 50mg level, and four times as likely as a driver with a zero blood alcohol level.

The costs of drink-driving related crashes are extensive:

• death and injury
• emotional
• ostracism (for the drink-driver)
• long-term financial costs
• legal charges - ranging from manslaughter to excess blood or breath alcohol
• penalties - including imprisonment, loss of license and/or disqualification and fines
• loss of insurance cover.

In 2008 driver alcohol/drugs was a contributing factor in 103 fatal traffic crashes, 441 serious injury crashes and 1,156 minor injury crashes. These crashes resulted in 119 deaths, 582 serious injuries and 1,726 minor injuries. The total social cost of crashes involving driver alcohol/drugs was about $841 million; that is, nearly a quarter of the social cost associated with all injury crashes. Alcohol is the second biggest contributing factor to road crashes in New Zealand.
In 2008, alcohol or drugs were contributing factors in:

• 33 percent of all road deaths
• 23 percent of all reported serious injuries from road crashes
• 14 percent of all reported minor injuries from road crashes.