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THE DOPE ON DRUG-IMPAIRED DRIVING
13 January 2005

Since the 1990s the prevalence of drug-impaired driving in Australia has increased and this has not gone unnoticed by police and politicians. The Australian Academy of Science’s Nova: Science in the news topic has the latest information at www.science.org.au/nova.

The Victorian Parliament recently passed legislation empowering police to randomly test drivers for the presence of the active component of cannabis and methamphetamines. Drivers found guilty face fines and a possible cancellation of their driver’s licence.

Other Australian states are contemplating similar measures in their efforts to reduce the major road-safety problem of drug-impaired driving (drug-driving). Drugs of particular concern are those that impact driver performance, for example cannabis users who find it difficult to stay in one lane on the road and may be unaware that they are drifting into the path of oncoming traffic.

Recent studies conducted in Victoria, New South Wales and Western Australia, found an increased prevalence of drug-driving and the presence of drugs (other than alcohol) in 26.7 per cent of all dead drivers in crashes for the period 1990-1999.

The current approach of arresting and testing a driver suspected of being impaired by drugs doesn’t act as a strong deterrent. An alternative is random testing, in which drivers are pulled over arbitrarily for drug-testing, just as is done for alcohol. However, testing for drugs at the roadside is complicated because of the wide range of drugs that can impair driving, few are detectable in the breath and little is known about the relationship between drug levels in the body and crash risk.

Legislators face significant practical problems in designing laws to limit drug-driving because the intensity and nature of a person’s reaction to a drug depends on several factors and therefore deciding on a threshold amount – over which driving might be considered to be impaired – is very difficult.

Critics argue that the link between the ‘presence’ approach and road safety is tenuous, since the detection of an illicit drug does not indicate whether that person is fit to drive or not. Civil libertarians suggest that the approach constitutes a significant breach of privacy for what may be a negligible effect on road safety. But advocates say that the real power of random testing is in the message it sends: drug-driving is dangerous, and it’s about time drivers were up to speed with that.

More information is on the Australian Academy of Science's Nova: Science in the news website at www.science.org.au/nova. The topic also includes a glossary; student activities; further reading; and annotated links to relevant websites. The topic was developed with support from the NRMA-ACT Road Safety Trust.

The principal sponsor of Nova: Science in the news is the Commonwealth Bank Foundation (http://www.commbank.com.au/foundation).