ALCOHOL INTERLOCKS REJECTED
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Today we officially launched WACD on 3AW with Neil Mitchell.
We have had a great response with many people emailing and phoning.
We launched with the call for Alcohol Interlock Devices to be fitted to all cars
The government has vetoed the idea saying that it would not be economical viable.
Their answer, on the run, was so quick that one must assume they
have already dismissed this idea despite a recommendation in 2004
from the National Road Safety Committee that all new cars be fitted
with Alcohol Interlock Devices. ( *see end of article)
How many more lives are going to be sacrificed waiting for the government to act on recommendations?
The government must already have a price that they put on Human life if
an idea can be dismissed as not economically viable without having to do any sums.
The RACV also dismissed the idea as being an ‘impost’ on drivers who don’t drink and drive.
Drivers who dont drink and drive can still be killed by drivers who do!
It is a small imposition
This device will save lives.
This is what road safety is supposed to be about.
The push for seatbelts began in the 1950s
'An early and important safety measure was to advocate the installation of seatbelts in all Police vehicles, and for Police motorcycle riders to wear crash helmets. Such measures provided an important example for the community. This occured as early as 1959' (Dr JHW BIRRELL)
In 2007 the Government could lead by example and fit Alcohol Interlock Devices in all vehicles.
This next extract is from 1969.
‘IT has been suggested to the 1/ committee that the wearing of seatbelts should be a matter of individual choice and any compulsion would represent an infringement of personal liberty.’
The committee, in one of the key statements of the report, said that there should not be compromise with death and injury where motor vehicle crashes are concerned.
So in September 1969, the committee recommended that ‘all occupants of motor vehicles should be required to wear seatbelts within a maximum period of two years’
1/ The Traffic Injury Committee
Seatbelts were compulsory by 1971.
The Road Toll was significantly reduced.
It took over Twenty years
Alcohol Laws were equally hard fought.
They haven't changed in 40 years
In 1980 B J CAMPBELL of the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Centre gave a keynote address at a road safety conference in Victoria.
He noted in the passage of ten years since Victoria enacted its seatbelt law and set the stage whereby the decade of the 70’s became one of great world-wide progress in road safety.
He went on…… “I want to state my belief that passing that law here in Victoria was the single most important action taken on behalf of road safety anywhere in the world, at any time, during the era of the motor car…
Consider the context in which you passed your pioneering law in Victoria.
Up to that time few people thought such a law could be passed.
The conventional wisdom was that even if such a law were passed, no one would obey.
At that time the auto industry, at least in the USA, was dead against such legislation.
Nevertheless you passed the law and triggered the passage of similar laws all over the world.
(from the book Twenty Years as a Police Surgeon—Dr J.H.W.Birrell)
Alcohol Interlock Devices are todays seatbelts.
The ignored recommendation
*Alcohol Interlocks
6.42 Alcohol interlocks are widely seen as part of the solution to the problem of drink driving.
In his evidence before the Committee, Mr Howard of VicRoads explained that ‘interlocks are now required for repeat drinkdrivers
and high-level first offenders’, and stated the Victorian
Government’s belief that this technology ‘offers tremendous protection’.35
6.43 Dr Job, from the NSW RTA, told the Committee that ‘we see interlocks as a valuable measure for circumventing a great many problems and a piece of technology which allows better ways to address the problem than current enforcement’.36
The Minister for Transport in New South Wales has referred the question of mandatory alcohol interlocks to the ATC for investigation.37
6.44 The AAA has also been a strong supporter of alcohol interlocks for many years, ‘because we believe that if used correctly, alcohol interlocks will be an effective tool in preventing recidivist drink drivers from injuring or endangering the lives of themselves and others’.38
6.45 The Committee is of the view that alcohol interlocks are going to prove a useful tool for law enforcement. But beyond that, they also have great scope for addressing the broader problem of drink driving by preventing any person driving while drunk.
It is the Committee’s belief that interlocks should be a standard fitting on all new vehicles and that an ADR should be introduced to provide for that.
Recommendation 20
6.46 The Committee recommends that the Australian Government introducean ADR for the mandatory fitting of alcohol interlocks on all new vehicles.
Isn't anybody angry the recommendations are always ignored?
