Page 1370 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 13 May 2014
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alcohol concentration of .05 or more; and requiring people convicted or found guilty of a drink or drug driving offence to complete an approved alcohol or drug awareness course.
In addition the government will shortly begin mandating the use of vehicle alcohol ignition interlocks by drink-drivers. Those provisions are directed at influencing the long-term behaviour of high-risk drink-drivers—those who repeatedly drink and drive or record high-range blood alcohol levels.
The government has also demonstrated its strong support for increased road safety measures through the budget. Last year the budget allocated $5.1 million over four years for police to better target bad behaviour by motorists. This funding extends the existing road safety operations team to enforce drug driving and drink-driving legislation. The “more police safer roads” initiative will provide the community with a more visible traffic police force, the ability to conduct more random roadside drug testing and RAPID camera operations and an increased capacity to combat other traffic offences such as speeding, mobile phone use and not wearing a seatbelt.
This bill builds on this overall commitment to and investment in better road safety on the part of the government. It does this by making four changes that improve our police’s ability to enforce the road transport laws when it comes to alcohol and drug testing.
The first amendment restricts the ability of a driver to rely on the defence of honest and reasonable mistake of fact for an offence of driving under the influence of a prescribed drug when the driver claims he or she believed they were taking another prohibited substance. The defence of honest and reasonable mistake provides that a person is not criminally responsible if the person was under a mistaken but reasonable belief about the facts, and, had the facts existed as believed, the conduct would not have been an offence.
At the moment drivers who have been charged with the offence of driving with a prescribed drug in their oral fluid or blood are able to rely on this defence and allege that they thought they were taking a controlled drug—or an illicit drug—that was not a prescribed drug. So a driver could claim that they thought they were consuming a drug such as cocaine, which is not detected through roadside drug testing, when in fact they took a prescribed drug, such as speed, which is detected by roadside drug testing.
Drivers who have driven whilst under the influence of an illegal drug should not be able to avoid punishment for their selfish and dangerous actions by using a legal loophole. There is clear evidence that the use of illicit drugs causes drivers to become impaired and reduces their ability to safely drive a car. These drugs are taken for their mood and perception altering effects. Operating a vehicle whilst under the influence of a controlled drug poses a significant safety risk to other road users and the broader community.
The amendment therefore ensures that those drivers who engage in this risky behaviour are not able to use the argument that they were mistaken as to which impairing drug they had consumed as a basis to avoid culpability.
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