Francesca Rudkin: Police need resources to test people and take them off the road

Thanks to another announcement from the Transport Minister Simeon Brown over the weekend, the police have a new target to add to their 'To Do' list.

The government has announced a crackdown on drunk and drugged drivers, setting the police a target of performing 3.3 million roadside alcohol tests a year and 50,000 roadside drug tests a year.

Anything we can do to get impaired people off our roads and prevent the carnage they can cause is a good thing.

It is a simple and effective deterrent to drink or drugged driving. I don’t know about you but I find getting breath tested a slightly nerve-wracking process, even if I haven’t dropped a drop. It works for me – the thought of a breath test is enough for me to make the most of Uber.

The problem has been – you'd think we’d stopped testing.

Up until about 3 weeks ago, I can't remember seeing a police breath testing checkpoint since before Covid. They were noticeably absent before the festive season – there always used to be checkpoints leading into Xmas as a reminder to us all to get that taxi or bus home from a work Christmas function.

And then, as if to make up for the lack of testing, I recently got breath tested three times in the space of 15 minutes by the Royal Oak roundabout in Auckland. It was about 4pm on a Sunday afternoon – obviously they were after the Sunday Funday drinkers from a local pub or two – and they were stopping drivers on two different roads leading off the roundabout. I got done twice on the way to my friends to drop something off, and once again on the way home. I got the giggles by the third, which wasn’t helpful.

Point is – bring it on. Last year was a bit of an outlier – the police did manage around 3.2 million breath tests – previous years it had been around 1.4 in 2018 and 2.1 in 2022. So it should be manageable. Keep it up. Be visible. Just knowing the police is keen to up their targets will hopefully mean more people make good decisions.

The drug testing is a slightly different and interesting case.

Getting roadside drug testing up and running has been a laborious process filled with complexities. In 2022 Labour passed legislation allowing for random roadside drug testing, but then they discovered they didn’t have a device that could record accurate results. Then another law change was introduced adding a lab test to back up the roadside test.

Along the way there have also been concerns about people testing positive – even if they are not impaired, and how we monitor people using pharmaceutical drugs and making sure they are not impaired while driving.

Under the coalition’s updated legislation, the plan is to use the same technology used in Australia.

Transport Minister Simeon Brown explained how it would work to Tim Beveridge yesterday on the Weekend Collective

“The legislation on that is currently before a Select Committee which is considering it, that is hopefully going to be passed shortly. Police then need to go through a procurement process in order to identify the test and to then procure one, then they'll roll it out. I mean, if you look at what they do in Australia, what they do is take a swab of your saliva within your mouth, they put it into a little kit, and that kit then identifies where the drugs are present to a certain standard. So that's what we expect will be implemented here in New Zealand. And as I said, legislation is currently before the Parliament, so we can now, we can roll that out and actually roll it out successfully. The last government passed legislation, but it required those tests to be an evidentiary standard, whereas most countries use this from a screening perspective, knowing that the tests aren't 100% accurate. But it will have a checks and balances in place, such as ensuring that you have to have two positive tests to actually be fined, can't just have one. You can have two and then evidenti

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the carry wood of morning's podcast from
news Talk Set B.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Thanks to another announcement from the Transport Minister Simon Brown
over the weekend, the police have another new target to
add to their to do list. The government has announced
a crackdown on drunk and drugged drivers, setting the police
a target of performing three point three million roadside alcohol
tests a year and fifty thousand roadside drug tests a year. Look,

(00:40):
anything we can do to get impaired people off our
roads and prevent the carnage they cause is a good thing.
It's a simple deterrent to drink or drug driving. I
don't know about you, but I find getting breath tested
a slightly nerve wracking process, even if I haven't drunk
a drop. It works for me right, The thought of

(01:03):
a breath test is enough for me to make the
most uber The problem has been you'd think we'd stopped testing.
Up until about three weeks ago, I can't remember seeing
a breath testing checkpoint. Probably since before COVID, they've been
noticeably absent. Before the festive seasons, there always used to

(01:24):
be checkpoints before leading into Christmas. As a reminder to
us all to you know, make sure that we get
a taxi or a bus home after a work function,
a Christmas function. But then, as if to make up
for this lack of testing, I recently got breath tested
three times in the space of fifteen minutes by the

(01:46):
Royal Oak Roundabout in Auckland. It was about four pm
on a Sunday afternoon. Obviously they were looking for the
Sunday Fund Aid rinkers from the local pubs and they
were stopping drivers on two different roads leading to the roundabout.
And I got done twice on the way to my
friend's place to drop something off in a letterbox, again
on the way home. I'm going to be I had

(02:07):
the giggles by the third time, which wasn't helpful. Wasn't
a good look. But the point is bring it on.
It's good to see. We want this to be visible.
Just knowing that the police is keen to up their
targets will hopefully mean more people will make good decisions.
Last year, interestingly, was a bit of an outlier. The
police did manage around three point two million breath tests.

(02:30):
Previous years it had not been so good about one
point four in twenty eighteen and two point one in
two thousand and two, so hopefully three point three will
be manageable for them. The drug testing is a slightly
different interesting case. Getting roadside drug testing up and running
has been a laborious process filled with a lot of complexities.

(02:54):
So in twenty twenty two Labor passed legislation allowing for
random roadside drug testing, but then they discovered they didn't
have a device that could record an accurate accurate enough result.
Then another law change was introduced, adding a lab test
to back up the roadside test. Along the way, there

(03:15):
have been concerns about people testing positive even if they're
not impaired, and how we monitor people using pharmaceutical drugs
and making sure they're not impaired while driving, how we
test them Under the coalition's updated legislation. The plan is
to use the same technology as used in Australia, so
Transport Minister Simeon Brown explained how it would work to

(03:37):
Tim Beveridge yesterday on the Weekend Collective.

Speaker 3 (03:39):
The legislation on that is currently before a Felect committee
which is considering it. That is, hopefully it be passed shortly.
Police then need to go through a procurement process in
order to identify the test into then procure one, then
they'll roll it out. I mean, if you look at
what they do in Australia, what they do is a
swab of your saliva within your mouth. They put it

(03:59):
into a little kit and that then identifies where the
drugs are present to a certain standard. So that's what
we expect will be implemented here in New Zealand. And
they said legislations currently before the parliament, so now we
can roll that out and actually roll it out successfully.
The last government pass legislation, but it required those tests
to be an evidentiary standard, whereas most countries using this

(04:21):
from a screening perspective knowing that the tests aren't one
hundred percent accurate. But it will have a checks and
balances in place, such as ensuring that he has with
two positive tests to actually be fined. Can't just have
one for have two and evidentary sample also has to
be taken following that. So we've got checks and balances
in place. But again it's're sending the message if you're

(04:41):
driving drugged or drunk on our roads, the police are
going to be resourced to screen for it and then
hold people to account for those dangerous behaviors which cause
far too many deaths on our roads each year.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
So that was Transport Minister Simeon Brown explaining how it's
all going to work. So under the proposed law, anyone
who failed two roadside drug tests would be suspended for
driving for twelve hours and could face further penalties like
fines and demerit points, and that oral fluid sample would
also be sent for more sophisticated lab testing. It has

(05:16):
been so difficult getting roadside drug testing up and running,
and it's not perfect and it might raise a few
problems for a few people, but it really is time
to have it in place. The police need to have
the resources to test people that they believe are impaired
and take them off the road for all our sake.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
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