DRINK DRIVING LAWS

 WACD WOULD LIKE TO SEE A COMPLETE OVERHAUL OF THE DRINK  DRIVING LAWS

OUR DRINK DRIVING LAWS ARE TIRED

The fight for alcohol to be recognized as a factor in road trauma was hard fought and eventually won in the 1960’s The knowledge around at that time is what our laws are based on today, some forty seven years later (2007)

We have .05 as a safe level to drive, and .15 before your licence may be taken away on the spot

 Latest research tells us that at .05 you are quite impaired

.02 is the new .05

 Countries serious about road safety have .02 as the highest level

 If we continue to lose lives to drink driving then zero must be the next step.   Human life comes first.

 Probationary drivers are believed to have a zero alcohol condition.  It was bought to the governments attention that a probationary driver could not be removed immediately from the road, if they were over the zero condition of their licence. 

This applies even if they have been involved in a fatality.

The government and the opposition agreed this was wrong and promised to back up their laws of zero, but instead they legislated that a probationary driver may have the licence removed only if the alcohol level is .07 and above

They did not back their own zero laws. (responsible driving bill) 

 The government pandered to pro drink driver legislators.

This new legislation was meant to ensure that probationary drivers would be removed from the roads at .07 yet the word may was added to the legislation.

 Amazingly some police are still happy to leave a probationary driver on the road even though they have the discretion to remove them at .07

Zero does not mean Zero in Victoria

 What do you need to do to fail your probationary period?

What message does it send? 

 WACD wants a zero tolerance of drink /drug driving

 Licence loss should be immediate for all drivers.

 You would not get a high resistance in changing these laws because most drivers are surprised that after being caught drink driving that they are allowed to continue driving the next day.

They can continue to drive until they receive a summons. That is often months later. Many drivers are confused about whether they can continue to drive or not. It can and does take months to get the summons.

Often once the driver realizes how much rope they have to play with they will play the system for as long as they can.

By the time the driver –probationary or full licence- gets to court the initial lesson of being caught drink driving or speeding has lost its impact.

They have been able to drive around since being caught with no concern about there ability to do so. Therefore the message received is that it really cannot be that dangerous.

They may have even been caught drink driving or speeding again with still no impact on their licence.

 It is time to drastically re- enforce the correct message.

 Drivers will eventually lose their licence but by that time it is now just nuisance value and not viewed as a loss for road safety reasons. Only immediate action will send that message.

 It isn’t any good spending millions on road safety if it isn’t followed up with immediate actions.

What is shown to be a major cause of road trauma (drink/drug driving and speeding) is initially treated as little more than a parking ticket

Recidivist drink/drug drivers should have there cars clamped 

 These drivers have already proved they haven’t any respect for road laws or the legal system.

 Originally alcohol laws were studied with the premise that drivers should still be able to go to the pub and drink and still drive home.

It is impossible to change that thinking without changing the laws.

You hear politicians say that drivers are heeding the drink driving laws, yet every week police are astounded by the amount of people who are still prepared to drink and drive.

 Who has it wrong?  Our bet is the police are right.

The politicians are trying to convince us that drivers do not drink and drive and this is causing a false sense of security for road users. It  sends the message to the drivers who ARE drink driving that what they are doing is ok because it isn’t being noticed!

 Police are noticing and many people are still dying because of drink driving in 2007.

From 1960 to 2007 and we are still pandering to drinkers who prefer to drive

 Drink driving was regarded by many in the 60’s as an important civil liberty. Unfortunately that attitude is still alive and well with some of our policy makers.

The battle for the next significant change is convincing these Pro- Drink Driving policy makers that it isn’t a right to drive impaired by alcohol or drugs.

They have to stop protecting the licence and start protecting lives.

 WACD will advocate for the drink driving laws to be changed to reflect the current knowledge. 

While they are waiting to fit all cars with Alcohol Interlock Devices the following measures must be adopted for the protection of the public

 We should have .02 as our HIGHEST level-----scrap .15

 Zero should be the only level for probationary drivers------scrap .07

If we are still getting alcohol related crashes at .02 and under after 12 months  then the level of .00 must be adopted with no tolerance level

ALCOHOL INTERLOCKS SHOULD BE FITTED TO ALLCARS        

TO PREVENT ANY FURTHER ALCOHOL RELATED DEATHS