TTC Group are calling for more education on drink driving

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The Government must make “stronger efforts” to educate people about the dangers of drink driving after latest figures reveal there has been no fall in drink drive deaths since 2010.

Drink drive education should be increased to raise more awareness about the dangers, said Alan Prosser, director of the TTC Group, the UK’s largest provider of diversionary driver training courses aimed at reducing road casualties nationwide.

There had been a 60% reduction in the number of convicted drink drivers attending drink drive rehabilitation courses over the past three years, he said.

“The Government and courts need to be more proactive in ensuring people are offered the opportunity to benefit from attending the road safety scheme, which has been praised for its success since it was introduced in the 1990s.

“An ongoing process which results in drivers not accessing education cannot be allowed to continue. It is disappointing after so many years of good progress in tackling drink driving that this has now stagnated,” said Mr Prosser, who works with police to provide courses to improve the public’s driving skills.

He called for “a renewed effort” to reduce the number of alcohol-related road deaths.

“We are asking the Government to make stronger efforts in raising awareness and increasing drink-drive education to try and drive down road deaths and serious injuries on our road,” he added.

Each year there are more than 5,000 drink drive accidents in the UK causing around 250 deaths and 8,000 injuries.

In the Government’s latest statistics there were 1,780 deaths in all road crashes in the year up to March 2016 – one more than 2015 – with traffic increasing by 1.8%.

The numbers of killed and seriously injured rose by 2% to 24,610 while there were 187.050 total casualties, down 2%.

DfT figures show there has been no reduction in drink-drive deaths since 2010.

The TTC Group, with its HQ in Telford, Shropshire, opened by the Princess Royal, has been educating road users to reduce casualties for more than 20 years and works the corporate sector to manage workplace road safety.

The company has more than 500 trainers nationwide educating 330,000 road users each year to reduce casualties.