France is battling drink-driving by forcing every car driver, including visitors to the country, to carry a single-use breathalyzer kit from July.

"/> France is battling drink-driving by forcing every car driver, including visitors to the country, to carry a single-use breathalyzer kit from July.

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Car breathalyzers to be compulsory from July

France is battling drink-driving by forcing every car driver, including visitors to the country, to carry a single-use breathalyzer kit from July.

Published: 6 February 2012 17:20 CET
Car breathalyzers to be compulsory from July
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Officials at the transport ministry confirmed to The Local on Monday that the rules will apply to anyone driving on French roads, including foreigners visiting the country.

The good news for them is that anyone caught without the kit will not immediately face the €11 ($14) fine. Police are to be instructed to start issuing fines only from November.

A departmental spokesperson told us that the start date for the new measure has been pushed back to July 1st 2012, a time when many foreign visitors take to the country’s roads for their holidays.

The date has been pushed back from the original planned date of April 1st to give manufacturers time to produce enough of the kits.

The single-use breathalyzer kit can be used to check the driver’s blood alcohol level. The legal limit in France is 0.5 grams per litre.

France has been battling to reduce the annual number of road deaths, which sat stubbornly around the 4,000 mark in 2011, a slight reduction on the figure for the year before.

The new test will allow people to test themselves and to give them the means to test others if they suspect they are over the limit.

Single-use breathalyzers cost between €0.50 and €1.50 and authorities are trying to make sure there are enough available before the law comes into force. 

Tests carrying the “NF” label are recommended in France, of which there are two manufacturers: Contralco and Red Line.

The transport department did not offer guidance on which tests to buy outside France, nor did it confirm whether a communication campaign will take place to publicise the new rules.

Motorists are being advised to have at least two breathalyzers at all times, so that one can be used if necessary while the other is kept to produce if requested by police.

Anyone driving in France is already required to carry a warning triangle and a fluorescent safety vest. The vest should be carried inside the car and not the trunk. Failure to have these in the car can lead to a fine of €90.

Other items required are a first aid kit, fire extinguisher and and spare bulbs for car lamps, lenses and reflectors. 

More information is available, in French, on the website of government road safety agency Sécurité Routière.

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Spain has second highest rate of daily alcohol drinkers in EU 

More than one in ten Spaniards drink alcohol every day, making them the Europeans who drink most regularly after the Portuguese, new Eurostat data reveals. 

Published: 10 August 2021 14:15 CEST
Spain has second highest rate of daily alcohol drinkers in EU 
Photo: Cristina Quicler/AFP

Thirteen percent of people in Spain drink alcohol every day, a similar rate to Italy, where 12 percent enjoy a tipple on a daily basis, and only behind Portugal, where 20 percent of people have an alcoholic drink seven days a week.

That puts Spaniards above the EU average of 8.4 percent daily drinkers, data published by Eurostat in July 2021 reveals. 

This consistent alcoholic intake among Spaniards is far higher than in countries such as Sweden (1.8 percent daily drinkers), Poland (1.6 percent), Norway (1.4 percent), Estonia (1.3 percent) and Latvia (1.2 percent). 

However, the survey that looked at the frequency of alcohol consumption in people aged 15 and over shows that weekly and monthly drinking habits among Spaniards are more in line with European averages. 

A total of 22.9 percent of respondents from Spain said they drunk booze on a weekly basis, 18.3 percent every month, 12.5 percent less than once a month, and 33 percent haven’t had a drink ever or in the last year. 

Furthermore, another part of the study which looked at heavy episodic drinking found that Spaniards are the third least likely to get blind drunk, after Cypriots and Italians.

The Europeans who ingested more than 60 grammes of pure ethanol on a single occasion at least once a month in 2019 were Danes (37.8 percent), Romanians (35 percent), Luxembourgers (34.3 percent) and Germans (30.4 percent). 

The UK did not form part of the study but Ireland is included. 

Overall, Eurostat’s findings reflect how the Spanish habit of enjoying a glass of wine with a meal or a small beer (caña) outdoors with friends continues to be common daily practice, even though 13 percent does not make it prevalent. 

Spaniards’ tendency to drink in moderation also continues to prevail, even though a 2016 study by Danish pharmaceuticals company Lundbeck found that one in six people in the country still drinks too much. 

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