An article in The Courier highlights the issues facing Ballarat police in combating drug driving, which is described as an increasing problem.
In the article, Highway Patrol Senior Sergeant Stuart Gale is quoted as saying drug driving is one of the regions top three issues and is regularly involved in injury and fatality road trauma.
“We’ve seen increases in drug impairment and driving since the inception of drug testing but it’s a big concern of mine that we are seeing this trend where drug impairment is overtaking alcohol impairment in our statistics,” Senior Sergeant Gale said.
As we highlighted in our drug testing post earlier this week, Victoria Police are attempting to tackle the issue in part with a new process. The new process means that while drivers will still be required to undertake the Preliminary Oral Fluid Test (POFT) and the Oral Fluid Test (OFT), if a test returns a positive result for drugs, an infringement will be immediately issued and a driving ban imposed. Previously, police would wait for a toxicology certificate before issuing an infringement notice and the subsequent imposition of a six-month licence suspension. This meant the offending driver could potentially continue to drive while having drugs in their system.
In The Courier article, Senior Sergeant Gale said impaired driving was “very dangerous” and described the technology and processes to catch those with drugs in their system as “extremely accurate”.
See the full article at The Courier website.
IMAGE CAPTION: Drug driving is an increasing problem in Victoria’s Ballarat region. Credit Highway Patrol Images https://www.flickr.com/photos/special-fx/5283385169/
