Road Safety

Driving While Impaired by Alcohol

Along with speeding, alcohol continues to be a major cause of fatal accidents on Québec roads. From 2005 through 2009, 31% of fatalities, 16% of serious injuries and 5% of minor injuries were related to alcohol. The net result was 195 individuals died, 490 were seriously injured and 2,200 were lightly injured in that year alone. In just over 25 years, however, things improved markedly. From 1978 to 2008, the number of fatalities due to alcohol dropped from 800 to 200.

If hundreds of lives have been saved in the past 20 years, it is due to intervention strategies combining prevention, through mass campaigns and awareness building, legislation, through tougher laws, and control, through police field work.

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