Drivers were drug-affected, alcohol-affected and speeding right through last year's pandemic in the ACT, despite more police out patrolling Canberra's roads.
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Drivers charged with drug driving offences rose during pandemic-affected 2020, although police believe this is likely attributable to more officers being on the road and actively targeting potential offenders.
There were 880 drivers apprehended for drug driving in the ACT last year, up from 866 the previous year.
These are similar results to the drink-driving apprehensions, which saw a modest decline from 880 apprehensions in 2019 to 842 in 2020.
Data released by police on the number of drink-drive charges outnumbered the apprehensions, most likely as a result of apprehended drivers facing multiple charges.
The number of drivers apprehended by police and found to be affected by both drugs and alcohol fell by just one, from 29 in 2019 to 28 in 2020.
For most of last year, road traffic volumes across the territory decreased significantly from mid-March to November as a result of a majority of employees being requested to work from home and a partial lockdown in place.
Pubs, clubs and restaurants were either closed or operated under conditions of much-reduced patronage.
Crime in general plummeted by 14.3 per cent across the ACT during the pandemic-affected 2020, with far fewer assaults and a 27 per cent decrease in burglary.
The Chief Police Officer for the ACT, Neil Gaughan, said that he had "little doubt" that the apprehension numbers had risen because of an increased police presence on the roads.
"One of the causal factors [for the higher apprehension numbers] has to be the fact that we had more police out patrolling the roads," he said.
"Even though there was significantly less road traffic, our members were redirected from ... other areas so they put more of their time into road patrols ... in addition to our traffic members.
"Any time you put more police resources on the road, you will catch more people speeding, drink-driving and the like, and I'm sure these stats are reflecting that."
Speeding infringements issued across the ACT last year increased 53.7 per cent at a time when federally, and across all states and territories, transport authorities were endorsing a "Vision Zero" outlook, with a goal of no deaths or serious injuries on our road transport network by 2050.
Both speeding and drink-driving are identified as two of the highest risk factors affecting road trauma.
Austroads reported that drink-driving is involved in about 18 per cent of all road fatalities nationally, resulting in more than 200 deaths a year and thousands of serious injuries.
In a 2020 study, the advisory body identified a range of new medium-term and long-term anti-drink-drive deterrent measures based on "good international practice and research evidence".
These include:
- treatment and support for alcohol-dependent drivers, including case management
- measures to reduce societal use of alcohol, such as increasing its price
- fast-tracking vehicle-based systems that prevent alcohol-impaired driving
- requiring high risk drivers such as drivers of commercial and heavy vehicles, learner vehicle and motorcycle drivers, and those convicted of prior drink driving offences to have a zero blood alcohol concentration (BAC) limit
- in the medium term, reducing the legal BAC limit for all drivers from 0.05 to 0.02, or zero.
A 2014 study published by the Australian Institute of Criminology revealed that "between 20 and 30 percent of drink drivers re-offend, and due to their repeat offending and high blood-alcohol concentrations (BAC), contribute disproportionately to road trauma".
"Importantly, this high-risk subgroup of drink drivers is less responsive to drink driving countermeasures that have been shown to be relatively effective in addressing drink driving in the general population," the study found.
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