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Danish police announce summer focus on driving under the influence

Police in Denmark say they will place increased focus in coming weeks on drivers who are under the influence of alcohol and narcotics.

Published: 24 July 2023 15:20 CEST

Danish police announce summer focus on driving under the influence

Danish police say they will be extra vigilant for drivers under the influence during the coming weeks-. File photo: Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix

Additional police resources will be put into catching drunk and narcotics-taking drivers in all of the country’s police districts, with exact measures varying locally the National Police (Rigspolitiet) said in a press statement.

Patrols could place themselves near areas where there is increased likelihood of drinking, such as in seaside towns or summerhouse areas.

Breathalysing could also become more frequent on Sundays, with police checking whether drivers are over the limit from weekend festivities.

The campaign is taking place because of the many social events during the summer at which alcohol is consumed, the National Police said in the statement.

Driving under the influence is something “markedly more Danes are rejecting” according to officer with the National Police communications unit, Christian Berthelsen.

“But despite that there are still some motorists who haven’t got the message. The aim of our patrol is to stop them,” he said.

“We should all help each other to stop drunk driving but it can be difficult to persuade another person not to drive. Especially if you’re not sure how much he or she has had to drink,” he said.

READ ALSO: How strict are the punishments for driving offences in Denmark?

One in five fatal road traffic accidents in Denmark involves a driver who is over legal limits, according to police statistics. The vast majority of such accidents occur late on weekend evenings. The majority of people who lose their lives in the accidents are the intoxicated drivers themselves.

Some 163 people in Denmark were killed between 2017 and 2021 in an accident involving a motorist who was under the influence of alcohol. June and July are the months in which these accidents occur most frequently.

June 2022 saw 635 people charged by police for driving under the influence of alcohol and 724 for driving under the influence of narcotics.

The heightened police focus on intoxicated drivers began Monday and will continue until August 6th.

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'Città 30': Which Italian cities will bring in new speed limits?

Bologna on January 17th became Italy’s first major city to introduce a speed limit of 30km/h on 70 percent of roads in the city centre under its ‘Città 30’ plan, first announced in 2022, and initially set to come into force by June 2023.

The move made Bologna one of a growing number of European cities, including Paris, Madrid, Brussels, and Bilbao, to bring in a 30km/h limit aimed at improving air quality and road safety.

But the change was met last week with a go-slow protest by Bologna’s taxi drivers and, perhaps more surprisingly, criticism from the Italian transport ministry, which financed the measure.

Matteo Salvini, who is currently serving as Italy’s transport minister, this week pledged to bring in new nationwide rules dictating speed limits in cities that would reverse Bologna’s new rule.

Salvini’s League party has long criticised Bologna’s ‘Città 30’ plan, claiming it would make life harder for residents as well as people working in the city and would create “more traffic and fines”.

OPINION: Italians and their cars are inseparable – will this ever change?

Bologna’s speed limit has sparked a heated debate across Italy, despite the increasingly widespread adoption of such measures in many other cities in Europe and worldwide in recent years.

While Bologna is the biggest Italian city to bring in the measure, it’s not the first – and many more local authorities, including in Rome, are now looking to follow their example in the next few years.

Some 60 smaller cities and towns in Italy have adopted the measure so far, according to Sky TG24, though there is no complete list.

This compares to around 200 French towns and cities to adopt the rule, while in Spain the same limit has applied to 70 percent of all the country’s roads since since May 2021 under nationwide rules, reports LA7.

The first Italian town to experiment with a 30 km/h speed limit was Cesena, south of Bologna, which introduced it in 1998. Since then, the local authority has found that serious accidents have halved, while the number of non-serious ones has remained unchanged.

Olbia, in Sardinia, also famously introduced the speed limit in 2021.

The city of Parma is planning to bring in the same rules from 2024, while the Tuscan capital of Florence approved five 30km/h zones in the city centre earlier this month.

Turin is set to bring in its first 30km/h limits this year as part of its broader plan to improve transport infrastructure, aimed at reducing smog and increasing livability.

READ ALSO: Why electric cars aren’t more popular in Italy

Meanwhile, the mayor of Rome, Roberto Gualtieri, has promised to introduce the limit on 70 percent of the capital’s roads by the end of his mandate, which expires in 2026.

In Milan, while the city council has voted in favour of lower speed limits and other traffic limitations on central roads, it’s not clear when these could come into force.

Milan mayor Beppe Sala this week said a 30 km/h limit would be “impossible” to implement in the Lombardy capital.

And it’s notable that almost all of the cities looking at slowing down traffic are in the north or centre-north of Italy.

There has been little interest reported in the measures further south, where statistics have shown there are a higher number of serious road accidents – though the total number of accidents is in fact higher in the north.

According to the World Health Organisation the risk of death to a pedestrian hit by a car driven at 50 km/h is 80 percent. The risk drops to 10 percent at 30 km/h.

The speed limit on roads in Italian towns and cities is generally 50, and on the autostrade (motorways) it’s up to 130.

Many Italian residents are heavily dependent on cars as their primary mode of transport: Italy has the second-highest rate of car ownership in Europe, with 670 vehicles per 1,000 residents, second only to Luxembourg with 682, according to statistics agency Eurostat.

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