A driver has not only escaped punishment for driving over the limit with alcohol in his bloodstream, he has sued the police for inflicting a blood alcohol test against his wishes. It seems that the police noticed him driving erratically just before he turned into his driveway - and when they approached him he was on his home turf.
They insisted he submit to a breath analysis and this returned a reading of 0.121, well over the legal limit, but when the case went to court this driver invoked a clause in the law that prevents police from legally enforcing a breath test on any person who has gained the sanctuary of their own home. As a result, the magistrate threw out this drink driving charge.
But - It didn't stop there ! This aggrieved motorist sued the police and has been awarded $18,590 damages because they infringed his liberty and acted contrary to the law when they imposed that breath test on him - against his will.
It seems that this is just one of the strange anomalies deeply buried in the law when the states legislated to bring in breath testing to try and contain road deaths attributable to alcohol. The initial law mandated 0.08 as the legal limit and eventually this was reduced to 0.05 to comply with what was becoming a world standard.
Initially, the civil liberties people were vastly affronted that a law that required a motorist to deliver a breath test served as an invasion of privacy and for a while it could only be demanded after a driver was involved in an accident. This was when the new 0.05 limit began to deliver results. Even a minor tailender in the Sydney commuter crawl brought the police to breath test both drivers - and so many were slightly over 0.05 after a big night out. Many were genuinely surprised to find they were committing a DUI offence.
The civil liberties people really went into high gear when it was proposed to introduce random breath tests. The very idea of the police stopping traffic and demanding that all drivers submit to a breath test was alien to the Australian culture and the politicians were ducking and weaving to try and mitigate the flak flying in their direction. Somewhere in the debate in the New South Wales parliament that old "a man's home is his castle " argument was trotted out and as a sop to the enraged this peculiar legal statute became part of the law.
It took a long time for the drink/driving message to sink in and now we have a new menace on our roads - drivers affected by drugs and roadside testing laws are rapidly changing to allow for a dual test to discover the presence of both stimulants. It is likely that in the future we may face an even more aggressive testing routine to weed out those who are a danger to others when they get behind the wheel of their car.
In today's world, that "home turf " exclusion makes absolutely no sense. In fact, it becomes an enticement for a driver affected by alcohol to get involved in a police pursuit if they think they can outrun the cops and reach the sanctuary of their own home. In fact, that simply invokes "Skye's Law " and imposes an automatic penalty far heavier than a DUI fine !
If we have a bad law on the books, the obvious answer is - change the law !
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