More people are driving under the influence of drugs and the State Member for Campbelltown, Bryan Doyle, says this is of major concern.
New figures show a “disturbing” 11 percent of fatalities on our roads involved a driver or motorcyclist who had illicit drugs in their system.
“Data like this has never been collated before in the state’s history and marks an important step in tackling the use of drugs while driving,” Mr Doyle said.
“This information is helping us understand critical factors about drug driving, including the fact that 40 per cent of drug driving offences and fatal crashes involved a drug driver that was under the age of 30.
“The NSW Government has been successful in reducing alcohol-related trauma in the past 30 years, with drink driving fatalities going down from 30 per cent in 1980, to 15 per cent in 2013.
“What we’ve learnt from our education and enforcement efforts combined with the factors we know now about drug driving will assist in informing our efforts to reduce this dangerous activity,” Mr Doye said.
“As with drink driving, education and enforcement are the key ways to combat drug driving. The NSW Police will now be using a new and improved drug testing machine, the Drager DrugTest® 5000.”
For more information about the key factors affecting drug driving, please visit the NSW Government’s Centre for Road Safety website: http://roadsafety.transport.nsw.gov.au/downloads/drug-driving-f.pdf.
