Random breath testing was the law change that had the most effect on reducing the number of drivers on the road with an illegal amount of alcohol in their blood. Prior to that legislation it took either an accident or the police observing an unusual driving pattern for a driver to be pulled over and breath tested.
Today those " Booze Buses " can be anywhere with police pulling over drivers at random and the tests will check for both alcohol and drugs. At this stage, drug testing requires the sample to be evaluated at a drug laboratory and the driver has a nervous wait until the results are known.
The test delivers a quicker result with alcohol. A low range reading is anything between 0.05 and 0.079 and that driver is dealt with by a court appearance. High range drink driving is punished by immediate license cancellation.
From May 20 that all changes in New South Wales. All drivers - including both low and high range - will lose their licenses immediately for a nominated period of time and low range will bring a $561 fine. The big difference is that low range will now be processed by the issue of an infringement notice that will avoid the need to appear before a magistrate.
The NSW Law Society is concerned that an infringement notice tends to lower the seriousness of what is a serious crime. The experience and shame of having to appear before a magistrate is an important deterrence. The need to undertake a traffic offender programme and a warning of the consequences of further drink driving is a far greater deterrence than just an infringement notice and a fine.
This law change has been implemented to free up state courts and police resources. This is despite low range driving prosecutions representing just 1.9 % of matters in NSW courts. Court cases are open to the public and covered by the media and there is the further deterrent of having the offender named and shamed in the local press.
There is no doubt that drivers impaired by alcohol contribute heavily to death and injury on our roads. It has been a long, hard slog to put laws in place to reduce this alcohol incidence but we are finally getting there. The risk of getting pulled over and breath tested is not just a matter of " bad luck " but almost a certainty in any given time frame.
It is the sight of those flashing lights and breath testing stations combined with the experience of people they know getting caught that is ever reducing the numbers taking a chance of drinking and driving. Taking backward steps from a system that works is not intelligent thinking.
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