Drink driving laws

[sue-perb]

Need to settle an argument. Does anyone know when drink driving first became illegal in the UK?

[rojash]

the Licensing Act 1872, says being drunk in charge of a horse, cow or steam engine incurs a �200 fine and possibly jail for up to 51 weeks.

[Buenchico]

As Rojash has indicated, driving under the influence of alcohol has been an offence, under various road traffic acts, since the earliest days of powered transport.

If your argument centres around the date when the law first quantified the permissible amount of alcohol in a driver's blood (rather than simply having a police officer check whether the driver could walk in a straight line), the year was 1967. (That's when the breathalyser was first introduced in this country).

Chris

[Grunty]

And on the first day, at least one police station in the country had only a bottle for collecting urine samples. Of course the first prisoner under the new law was a woman. Wouldn't you just know it!

[Paul22118]

If my memory serves, it was the 1967 Road Safety Act but did not become practise until early 1968.