Calls for roadside testing to combat drug-driving
TOUGHER laws must be introduced to crack down on drug-drivers, say campaigners.
The same number of motorists have died on Scotland’s roads after taking cannabis as those killed after drinking.
Legal driving limits for drugs – similar to those for alcohol – were introduced in England and Wales two years ago but the Scottish Government has yet to introduce legislation.
Police south of the Border have roadside drugs tests which allow them to test drivers’ saliva for traces of cannabis and cocaine.
But officers in Scotland have no way to test for drugs after pulling vehicles over. There are also no prescribed limits on drug intake here, so to secure a drug-driving conviction prosecutors must prove driving has been impaired.
In England and Wales a test showing a specific amount of drugs in a driver’s bloodstream would lead to a conviction.
Almost 14,000 arrests were made south of the Border in the first year of the new legislation.
The Scottish Tories are calling for a ‘zero-tolerance’ approach to driving while using illegal drugs, and the party yesterday launched a campaign calling for reforms.
Justice spokesman Douglas Ross said a limit for legal drugs would allow prosecution of those driving after taking ‘dangerous levels’ of medicinal drugs. He also urged the SNP to roll out roadside saliva testing kits to allow for ‘quicker and easier detection of offenders’.
In Scotland, officers can only conduct a ‘field impairment test’ at the roadside, which requires a driver to demonstrate their coor- dination by walking in a straight line or standing on one leg.
If they fail, they are taken to a police station for a blood test.
Mr Ross said: ‘Drug-driving is as dangerous as drink-driving, yet the Scottish Government has failed to respond to this menace. We need immediate action to halt the growing number of deaths and injuries caused by people on drugs getting behind the wheel.
‘That means improved legislation to tackle driving under the influence of dangerous substances, and a zero-tolerance approach.’
He added: ‘Scotland has lagged behind other parts of the UK in failing to tackle this issue.’
Figures published this year by the Forensic Science International journal show that between 2012 and 2015, one in five driver fatalities tested positive for alcohol – the same number tested positive for cannabis.
In 2010, Rachael Ward, 20, from Tillicoultry, Clackmannanshire, was killed in a high-speed crash when her car was hit by motorist Brian Redfern, who had taken amphetamines and was racing another driver at speeds of more than 74mph on a road with a 40mph speed limit.
Earlier this year, Miss Ward’s mother Janice Ward urged the Government to introduce roadside tests. She said: ‘They have caught a lot of people [elsewhere]. It is getting them off the road before they do any damage.’
In 2015 a Transport Scotland study noted that a driver or rider impaired by drugs was possibly or very likely to be a contributory factor in 55 accidents that year. A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘‘Scotland has legislation that makes it an offence to drive while being impaired due to drugs. We are considering whether evidence shows that specific drug-driving limits should be introduced.’
‘Scotland lagging behind rest of UK’
DRUG-DRIVING is a modern scourge – yet our police lack the tools to tackle this pivotal road-safety issue.
In England, officers carry testing kits that can, using saliva, quickly tell if a driver has cannabis or cocaine in their system.
The kits can be deployed in the back of patrol cars and can deliver a quick confirmation that drugs are a factor.
Yet here in Scotland, police are obliged to make a judgment call about a driver’s impairment. It’s imprecise and, in this day and age, unacceptable.
With as many people dead after consuming illegal drugs and then taking the wheel as dying after drink-driving, this is an urgent issue. Drivers, usually young, are losing their lives and risking those of others.
Holyrood was sold as an adroit parliament that would be quick to deliver solutions to Scottish problems. It acted with alacrity on drink-driving and Scotland now has the strictest levels in the UK.
But lately Holyrood has been paralysed as the SNP has been distracted by ever-more desperate attempts to revivify its independence project. How shameful that the expensive talking shop at the foot of Edinburgh’s Royal Mile failed to pass a single piece of legislation in over a year.
That is a searing indictment of First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, one which renders her fine words about making education a priority and ‘acting in the interests of the Scottish people’ meaningless.
The Tory call for action on drug-driving is unarguable. Will the Scottish Government shake itself from its independence-induced torpor and act to save lives?