Page 2372 - Week 06 - Thursday, 24 June 2010
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This bill represents a key element of the government’s strategy to improve road safety in the ACT as it tackles one of the major contributors to road crashes—drink driving. Over one in five drivers killed in crashes has a blood alcohol concentration exceeding the legal limit. Nationally, random breath testing results typically show that about one in 150 drivers tested exceed the legal limit. Recent ACT Policing data shows that approximately one in 70 drivers tested is a drink driver.
This is an extremely alarming outcome when compared to the national trend. While some of the ACT’s higher drink-driving hit rate may be attributable to targeting through intelligence-led policing, it also indicates that there are many ACT drivers who simply have not got the message that drinking and driving is not acceptable. Regrettably, despite numerous warnings and targeted police operations, around 1,500 ACT motorists are caught drink driving each year and approximately one-third of those are repeat offenders.
Surveys of driver attitudes and awareness indicate that there is an understanding in the community about the impact of drinking alcohol on a person’s ability to drive safely and the unacceptability of drink driving. Yet people continue to drink and drive and, in some cases, they do this repeatedly. In doing so, they put themselves, their passengers and other road users at risk, at risk of death and at risk of life-changing injury.
The impact of road crashes resulting in death or serious injury is often expressed in terms of financial costs, such as health costs and loss of income. But the personal impact of the death or serious injury of a person in a car crash is much more difficult to quantify. The enduring impact on family and friends of the senseless and needless loss or disablement of a loved one at the hands of a drink driver can only be imagined.
It is clear that beyond the campaigns which highlight the dangers to road users of drink driving, there is a need for the ACT’s drink-driving laws to do more to deter drink driving by letting motorists know that real and serious consequences will follow if they are caught. There is also a need to change the ACT’s drink-driving laws to more clearly send the message that drinking and driving do not mix.
The ACT’s current drink-driving laws are largely found in the Road Transport (Alcohol and Drugs) Act 1977, a piece of legislation developed over 10 years before ACT self-government, around the same time substantial controls on drink driving, including random breath testing, were being implemented elsewhere around the country.
The act has not been substantially reviewed or revised since then. So the package of reforms made by this bill represents the most significant reform to drink-driving laws in the territory since self-government. They are largely in line with changes made to drink-driving laws in other jurisdictions over recent years.
The process of arriving at these reforms has involved consultation with the community, through a discussion paper in mid 2008, which sought views on a range of potential reforms to the act. This discussion paper was followed by the establishment of a drink-driving reform working group last year. This group was
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