The 2023 Toxicological Findings Report on Victims of Traffic Accidents, prepared by the National Institute of Toxicology and Forensic Sciences (INTCF), in collaboration with seven Institutes of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences and the National Road Safety Observatory of the DGT, shows a slight change in the trend observed in previous years: there have been fewer cases of alcohol positives among drivers who died in road accidents in 2023, but instead their autopsies show that there are more drugs of abuse and psychotropic drugs on the road.
Of the 862 drivers who died in a traffic accident in 2023 and underwent autopsy and toxicological analysis, 462 (53%) tested positive for one or more of these substances: alcohol, drugs of abuse (mostly cocaine and cannabis), and psychotropic drugs (antidepressants, antiepileptics, benzodiazepines…).
In the case of alcohol, according to the INTCF analysis, this figure represents a slight increase of 0.8% compared to 2022, but compared to the results obtained since 2020, it represents a decrease of 2.8%.
Although not all the news is “good”: the percentages for 2023 also show that, among deceased drivers, positives for drugs (2.3%) and psychotropic drugs (1.1%) have increased. And more worryingly, 67% of the deceased who had consumed alcohol were driving with a blood alcohol level higher than the one considered a crime for road safety.
Referrer: MiMub in Spanish
