How to prevent alcohol-related accidents

Discover why drinking makes you more prone to accidents, and how to lower your risks.

Drinking alcohol makes you more prone to accidents. These range from road traffic accidents to falls, drowning, poisoning and other unintentional injuries – and can be minor or serious.¹

Alcohol-related accidents can be fatal. Around the world in 2016, an estimated 870,000 were caused by unintentional alcohol-related injuries – accounting for almost three out of ten (29%) of the 3 million deaths caused by alcohol that year.²

The types of accidental injuries commonly linked to alcohol include head injuries, fractures, facial injuries, scarring and alcohol poisoning.³

But there are things you can do to lower your risk of an alcohol-related accident, both in terms of limiting how much you drink and planning ahead. Read on to find out more.

Alcohol increases the risk of accidents

The more you drink, the more likely you are to have an accident.^5,6

Heavy drinking (between 5 and 7 units of alcohol over three-to-six hours) more than doubles your risk of being injured – it can increase the risk up to five-fold.⁷ Drinking heavily and often puts you at a high risk of injury over the course of your life.⁸

And because everybody reacts differently to alcohol, there isn’t any ‘safe’ cut-off point for the amount of alcohol which can minimise the risk.⁹

Why alcohol increases your risk of accidents

Alcohol is a depressant. It slows down the brain and affects your body’s responses.¹⁰ Accidents and falls are common because of the way alcohol affects your balance and co-ordination.¹¹

Alcohol also suppresses activity in parts of the brain associated with inhibition.¹²

Binge drinking increases the likelihood of both becoming aggressive or angry and also being the victim of violence.¹³
Alcohol and aggression

Drinking alcohol can:

affect your judgement and reasoning
slow down your reactions
worsen your balance and coordination
impair your vision and hearing
make you lose concentration and feel drowsy

If you drink alcohol, this means the normal warning signals and second thoughts you might usually have about dangerous situations are less likely to happen, which can lead you to take actions you might not otherwise take. This not only increases the risk of accidents, but is part of the reason why alcohol is linked with self-harm and suicide.¹⁴

Binge drinking

Alcohol-related accidents are most likely to happen following a single occasion of heavy alcohol consumption – also known as ‘binge drinking’.¹⁵

Drinking alcohol quickly can lead to acute alcohol poisoning – which can be fatal. There is no minimum amount of alcohol that could cause alcohol poisoning – it depends on a person’s age, sex, size, weight, how fast they have been drinking, how much they have eaten, their general health and whether they have taken medication or drugs.

That’s because it takes an average adult around an hour to process one unit of alcohol (although it varies a lot, from person to person). Alcohol poisoning happens if the concentration of alcohol in your bloodstream reaches a dangerous level that stops the body from working properly.

If you think someone might be experiencing alcohol poisoning - even if you have doubts - place them on their side in the recovery position and call 999 for an ambulance.
Find out more about alcohol poisoning

The increased risk of accidents after drinking alcohol is one of the reasons why the UK Chief Medical Officers’ (CMOs) recommend limiting the amount you drink on any single occasion. That means you should never binge drink – defined as more than six units of alcohol in a single session for women, or more than eight units for men.¹⁶

Both men and women are also advised not to drink more than 14 units a week – this reduces the risk of long-term health conditions related to alcohol.

UK low risk drinking guidelines

Accidents related to drink-driving

Drink driving kills. Alcohol slows down your reactions and impairs judgement, making your driving unsafe and putting you, and others, at greater risk of accidents.¹⁷

An estimated 6,480 people were killed or injured in drink driving accidents in the UK in 2020 – with the number lower than usual, due to there being less traffic because of the coronavirus pandemic.¹⁸

The safest and best advice is to avoid alcohol completely if you have to drive. Even if you've been to sleep after drinking, there could still be alcohol in your system, and this could be enough to put you well over the drink driving limit and impair your ability to drive safely.

The risk of accidents is why there are strict limits on alcohol and driving across the UK. Find out more about alcohol and drink driving here.

Can I drive the morning after drinking?

Alcohol and drowning

Don’t try to swim if you have been drinking.

Drinking alcohol impairs your judgement, balance and coordination²¹ - seriously affecting your ability to get yourself out of trouble and making swimming very difficult.

The Royal Life Saving Society (RLSS) say a quarter of all adult drowning victims have alcohol in their bloodstream.²² Among people aged 16-25 who lost their lives to accidental drowning, almost half (45%) had alcohol and/ or drugs in their bloodstream. Many of them drowned because they walked home alone and fell into the water.

The RLSS have a dedicated Don’t Drink and Drown campaign to try and reduce the high number of university students who drown after drinking.

How to avoid alcohol-related accidents

If you have drunk alcohol, you shouldn’t drive, operate machinery, swim or take unnecessary risks. Remember that your performance and judgement could still be affected by alcohol the day after a heavy drinking session.

You can also help reduce alcohol-related accidents by looking out for friends who might be behaving dangerously.

To keep short-term risks from accidents or injury low, the UK Chief Medical Officers advise you to:

limit the total amount of alcohol you drink on any single occasion
drink more slowly, drink with food, and alternate your drinks with water
plan ahead to avoid problems - for example by making sure you can get home safely, or that you have people you trust with you

Staying in control

There are practical things you can do to keep your risk low:

avoid drinking in rounds
start drinking later
consider limiting your alcohol intake to only drinking with meals
replace an alcoholic drink with an alcohol-free one – there’s more choice than ever, with beer, wine and spirits available
try setting yourself a drink or spending limit - rather than using debit or credit card, stop when your cash runs out
never ‘pre-load’ with alcohol at home before going out to drink

Alcohol support services

If you are concerned that you or someone you care about has a problem with alcohol there is a lot of help available. Here you can find useful links and phone numbers to get the support you need.

Get support

References

[1] Department of Health. (2016). UK Chief Medical Officers’ low risk drinking guidelines. [Online]

[2] World Health Organization. (2018). Global status report on alcohol and health 2018. Geneva: WHO [Online]. Available at: http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/274603/9789241565639-eng.pdf?ua=1. [Accessed 4 January 2019].

[3] Department of Health (2016) Alcohol Guidelines Review – Report from the Guidelines development group to the UK Chief Medical Officers.

[4] Taylor, B., Irving, H.M., Kanteres, F., Room, R., Borges, G., Cherpitel, C., Greenfield, T. and Rehm, J. (2010). The more you drink, the harder you fall: a systematic review and meta-analysis of how acute alcohol consumption and injury or collision risk increase together. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 110(1-2), 108-116.

[5] Killoran, A., Canning, U., Doyle, N., and Sheppard, L. (2010). Review of effectiveness of laws limiting blood alcohol concentration levels to reduce alcohol-related road injuries and deaths. Centre for Public Health Excellence NICE, p.3.

[6] The Chief Medical Officers' Low risk drinking guidelines

[7] Rehm, J., Gmel, G., Sempos, C.T. and Trevisan, M. (2003). Alcohol-related morbidity and mortality. Alcohol Research & Health, 27(1), 39.

[8] Killoran, A., Canning, U., Doyle, N., and Sheppard, L. (2010). Review of effectiveness of laws limiting blood alcohol concentration levels to reduce alcohol-related road injuries and deaths. Centre for Public Health Excellence NICE, p.3.

[9] Sari, Y. (2017). Commentary: Targeting NMDA receptor and serotonin transporter for the treatment of comorbid alcohol dependence and depression. Alcoholism, Clinical and Experimental Research, 41(2), 275.

[10] Taylor, B., Irving, H.M., Kanteres, F., Room, R., Borges, G., Cherpitel, C., Greenfield, T. and Rehm, J. (2010). The more you drink, the harder you fall: a systematic review and meta-analysis of how acute alcohol consumption and injury or collision risk increase together. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 110(1-2), 108-116.

[11] Taylor, B., Irving, H.M., Kanteres, F., Room, R., Borges, G., Cherpitel, C., Greenfield, T. and Rehm, J. (2010). The more you drink, the harder you fall: a systematic review and meta-analysis of how acute alcohol consumption and injury or collision risk increase together. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 110(1-2), 108-116.

[12] Sundin, E., Landberg, J., Galanti, M. R., Room, R., & Ramstedt, M. (2022). Country-Level Heavy Episodic Drinking and Individual-Level Experiences of Harm from Others' Drinking-Related Aggression in 19 European Countries. European addiction research, 28(2), 134–142. https://doi.org/10.1159/000520079

[13] Royal College of Psychiatrists website. Alcohol and depression. (Accessed 27 April 2022). Available at: https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/mental-health/problems-disorders/alcohol-and-depression

[14] Rehm, J., Room, R. and Taylor, B., 2008. Method for moderation: measuring lifetime risk of alcohol‐attributable mortality as a basis for drinking guidelines. International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research, 17(3), 141-151.

[15] Office for National Statistics. (2018). Adult drinking habits in Great Britain, 2017.

[16] Martin, T. L., Solbeck, P. A., Mayers, D. J., Langille, R. M., Buczek, Y., & Pelletier, M. R. (2013). A review of alcohol‐impaired driving: The role of blood alcohol concentration and complexity of the driving task. Journal of forensic sciences, 58(5), 1238-1250.

[17] Department for Transport. (23 February 2022). Reported road casualties in Great Britain, provisional estimates involving illegal alcohol levels: 2020 [Accessed 13 April 2023] Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casualties-in-great-britain-provisional-estimates-involving-illegal-alcohol-levels-2020

[18] Gan, G., Guevara, A., Marxen, M., Neumann, M., Jünger, E., Kobiella, A., Mennigen, E., Pilhatsch, M., Schwarz, D., Zimmermann, U.S. and Smolka, M.N. (2014). Alcohol-induced impairment of inhibitory control is linked to attenuated brain responses in right fronto-temporal cortex. Biological Psychiatry, 76(9), 698-707.

[19] Royal Lifesaving Society UK website. About Don’t Drink and Drown. Available at: https://www.rlss.org.uk/about-dont-drink-and-drown [Accessed 26 April 2023]Royal Lifesaving Society UK website. About Don’t Drink and Drown. Available at: https://www.rlss.org.uk/about-dont-drink-and-drown [Accessed 26 April 2023]

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Last Reviewed: 26th April 2023

Next Review due: 26th April 2026