UK data suggest drug driving is as widespread as drink-driving, as Germany updates road safety statistics

New analysis of UK official data by road safety charity IAM RoadSmart has found that drug-driving convictions recorded on driving licences in Great Britain overtook drink-driving convictions for the first time in 2025: 30,707 drug-driving convictions were recorded on licences, against 29,769 for drink-driving. Drug-driving convictions recorded on licences have risen 28% since 2022, while drink-driving convictions have fallen 17% over the same period. Drivers aged 17-24 accounted for 18% of all drug-driving convictions recorded despite holding only around 6% of licences.

Official government data tell a related story. The Department for Transport’s final 2025 road casualty statistics, published in July, show that alcohol and drugs are now recorded as factors in fatal collisions at almost identical rates – 13% for alcohol, 12% for drugs – a measure of actual crash involvement rather than enforcement outcomes, where alcohol has historically been the dominant factor by a wide margin. 

Germany’s Bundestag has acted to close a related data gap. In July, Members of Parliament passed a second amendment to the Road Traffic Accident Statistics Act, adding the recording of THC impairment levels to the official national accident statistics, alongside the alcohol-impairment data already collected. The change follows Germany’s partial legalisation of cannabis for adults in April 2024 and the introduction, that August, of a 3.5 ng/ml THC limit for driving, mirroring the country’s 0.5‰ alcohol limit; cannabis remains banned outright for drivers on probationary licences and under 21. Police have already been recording THC readings at crash scenes nationwide since July 2025, but this law creates the legal basis to feed those data into the official statistics used for safety research – intended to allow proper evaluation of how legalisation is affecting road safety, including for young and novice drivers.