Almost 1,800 tests were carried out on motorists suspected of drug driving this year compared with 747 two years ago, and about three-quarters of them proved positive.
The pressure is to be intensified in 2009 with the testing authority, the Medical Bureau of Road Safety, assigning extra staff and the Road Safety Authority (RSA) planning its first drug-driving campaign.
Trials in Australia aimed at developing a reliable device for random roadside drug testing are also being followed closely by officials, with the intention of introducing any successful prototype here.
“They are piloting a saliva test and it’s being tracked very carefully,” said Noel Brett, chief executive of the RSA.
“But we aren’t standing still. We’ve had a lot of training for gardaí on drug recognition, which means gardaí conducting random breath tests for drink driving or stopping someone for impaired driving are quicker to spot the signs of drug use.”
Because of the complexity of drug tests — which check for seven categories of drugs — the Medical Bureau of the Road Safety Authority only test blood and urine samples for drugs when specifically requested by gardaí but bureau head, Professor Denis Cusack said that the number of requests was growing rapidly.
“We test around 6,000 blood and urine samples a year for alcohol and now about 30% of those are also tested for drugs. It’s quite a significant increase on a few years ago and we would anticipate that next year there will be a further increase,” said Prof Cusack.
Drink driving still dominates testing however, and the bureau tests 15,000 breath samples for alcohol in a year.
There were also more than 18,000 drink-driving prosecutions last year compared with fewer than 100 drug-driving prosecutions per year in recent years.
This is mainly because many motorists found with drugs in their system are also over the drink-driving limit and both offences come under the same law which classes both as driving under the influence of an intoxicant.
“The issue of poly-drug misuse is increasingly prevalent,” Noel Brett explained. “Someone who takes cocaine with a few bottles of beer might move on to cannabis to come down.
“But there is also an issue of drug misuse alone. A lot of people are ignorant of the effects.
“They might be very clear on how alcohol affects driving but have little realisation of, for example, what cocaine does,” he added.
The RSA’s new campaign will use television advertising and target nightclubs and third-level institutions to explain the dangers of drug driving.
Meanwhile, gardaí warned yesterday the annual Christmas clampdown on intoxicated driving would continue throughout the new year’s celebrations.
Road deaths have fallen from 336 last year to 275 to date but safety campaigners are pushing to reach a target of reducing fatalities to just above 200 by 2010.
Source: Caroline O’Doherty, Irish Examiner, 30/12/2008
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