Drink drive rehabilitation

As part of the campaign against drinking and driving, in 1993 the Government introduced experimental educational courses for drink/drive offenders. These have since become an accepted part of the legal process and anyone convicted of drink driving in the United Kingdom may be offered the opportunity to reduce the length of their disqualification by up to 25 per cent if they complete a sixteen hour alcohol awareness course approved by the Department for Transport, Local Government, and the Regions.

The courses have been evaluated and the results are encouraging. The main points of the report, drawn up by TRL Ltd (formerly the Transport Research Laboratory), are:

  • Most course attendees were disqualified for less than two years, the majority for one sentence only which was related to driving or attempting to drive whilst over the limit or unfit to drive through alcohol.

  • Nearly 30 per cent were high-risk offenders but most were not and therefore the courses appeared to be reaching those for whom they were intended. Under the DTLR scheme a driver becomes a high-risk offender by either providing an evidential specimen with an alcohol level at least 2.5 times the legal limit, or by providing an evidential sample with an alcohol level between 1 and 2.5 times the legal limit, having been convicted of a drink/driving offence in the previous ten years, or by refusing to supply an evidential sample.

  • Research found that 36 months after their original conviction, only 3.4 per cent of offenders who had attended the course had been convicted of a subsequent drink/drive offence, compared with 9.6 per cent of those who had not. After 60 months, the reconviction rates still showed a marked reduction for those who had attended a course over those who had not.

  • The reduction in reconviction rates was observed even when the data were controlled for differences in social group, sex, age, and length of disqualification. Although the courses were not originally intended for high-risk offenders, this group of offenders also benefited from the courses.

  • Offenders aged between 30 and 39 years tended to benefit more than older or younger offenders.

  • Those attending the courses who subsequently did reoffend tended to wait until their licences had been returned whereas non-course attendees did not.

  • Immediately after attending the course, offenders' reported attitudes to drinking and driving had changed positively.

  • Knowledge about alcohol improved.

The full text of the report is available on www.dtlr.co.uk under publications, DTLR safety reports.