Thank you.
Good morning from Brisbane, Australia. I would like to thank the committee for the opportunity to speak to you today about Australia's approach to reducing alcohol-related road crashes. I hope this will assist you in your deliberations relating to Bill C-46.
Over the last 30 years, there has been a substantial reduction in alcohol-related road fatalities in Australia, as well as a major shift in community attitudes relating to drink driving. Today I would like to give you a brief overview of the various countermeasures that have contributed to these changes.
To set the scene, this graph shows the long-term trend in the percentage of drivers and motorcycle riders killed in Australia with a blood alcohol concentration of .05 grams per 100 millilitres or more, which is the general alcohol limit across the country. As can be seen, Australia experienced a major decline in alcohol-related fatalities during the 1980s and 1990s, similar to many other motorized countries around the world, including Canada. While the number of fatalities plateaued during the early 2000s, there has been a renewed decline since 2008. This long-term reduction in alcohol-related fatalities is one of the major road safety success stories in Australia, and has involved the introduction of a range of countermeasures.
Moving to the next slide, I would like to summarize the evolution of drink driving countermeasures in Australia. This list is not meant to be exhaustive, and I've kept the time frames relatively broad, since the countermeasures were implemented at different times across our states and territories. The foundation for our approach was laid in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when all the states adopted per se drink driving laws. During the 1980s, this approach was strengthened by the lowering of our general alcohol limit from .08 to .05, and by introducing random breath testing, or RBT, and mandatory penalties for drink driving, including licence disqualification for all offenders.
During the 1990s there were further refinements, with the introduction of a zero alcohol limit for learner, provisional, and professional drivers, and ongoing strengthening of penalties. While most states introduced some form of rehabilitation for offenders during the period, it remains voluntary in some states. Since the early 2000s, most of the Australian states have introduced alcohol ignition interlocks and vehicle impoundment for high-range and/or repeat offenders.
To illustrate the impact of these countermeasures, I would like to present a case study from my home state of Queensland. We commenced breath testing in the late 1960s, and moved to a .05 alcohol limit in 1982. However, we delayed introducing random breath testing, despite its widespread adoption in other states, due to the perceived civil liberty concerns on the part of the then Queensland state government. Instead, the government introduced a weaker form of breath testing in 1996, called “reduce impaired driving”, or RID. This program was similar to the sobriety checkpoints currently relied on in many countries. The police could randomly pull over drivers, but could only breath test those they suspected of drinking. Finally, after mounting pressure from road safety advocates and encouraging evaluations from other states, the Queensland government introduced full-blown random breath testing in 1988, which enabled the police to pull over drivers at any time or place and request a breath test. These changes were each supported by the strengthening of penalties and extensive public education.
To illustrate the effects of these initiatives, this graph compares alcohol-related fatalities in the time periods following the introduction of each of the key countermeasures. As can be seen, the introduction of the .05 limit, RID, and random breath testing were all associated with stepwise reductions in the number of alcohol-related driver and rider fatalities, all of which were significant and consistent with other evaluations. The data indicated that the introduction of .05 was associated with a 12% decline in alcohol-related fatalities, while the introduction of random breath testing was associated with a further 18% decline in fatalities over and above what was the case when the sobriety checkpoint program was in place.
The next slide leads me to tell you a little bit more about random breath testing, since it is the primary drink driving law enforcement tool used throughout Australia. As already mentioned, the legislation underpinning random breath testing allows the police to pull over and breath test drivers at any time, irrespective of whether or not they suspect that they've been drinking. The majority of RBT operations across Australia are conducted in a highly visible stationary mode, using either large buses, colloquially known as “booze buses”, or marked police cars. While these operations are designed to catch drink drivers, the key goal is to promote general deterrence through their highly visible nature.
Over the years, RBT has been supported by extensive mass media advertising, and various evaluations have confirmed that it has produced long-term reductions in alcohol-related crashes. Importantly, there is also very strong community support for RBT, with a recent survey showing 98% approval nationally for the countermeasure.
Here are some photos of different types of RBT operations. In the top left, you can see a booze bus parked on the side of the road. Depending on the traffic volumes, the police will either pull over every driver that passes by or randomly select vehicles from the traffic stream to administer a preliminary breath test. This process is relatively quick, with drivers only detained for a minute or two. However, if the driver fails the preliminary breath test, that driver is then required to undertake an evidentiary test in the bus.
On the right and bottom left are examples of car-based RBT operations. In this mode, drivers who fail the preliminary breath test are transported to a police station to undertake the evidentiary breath test.
As already noted, considerable police resources are devoted to RBT, with many states conducting the equivalent of one breath test per licensed driver every year. In a state like Queensland, where we have over three million drivers, that means over three million breath tests are performed each year.
As a result, exposure to RBT has steadily increased over time and now is very high across the country. As shown in this graph, around 80% of drivers surveyed nationally now report having seen RBT in the last six months. More particularly, over one-third of those surveyed report having actually been breath tested in the last six months.
To conclude, over the last 30 years, Australia has experienced a major decline in drink driving fatalities. However, challenges remain. Alcohol remains a significant factor in around 20% of our driver and rider fatalities. Recidivist drink drivers remain a concern, as they are overrepresented in offences and crashes. The uptake of alcohol ignition interlocks and rehabilitation programs remains relatively low in some states.
Lastly, as will be explained further in a later session by another of my Australian colleagues, Assistant Commissioner Doug Fryer, all the Australian states and territories have now introduced random roadside drug testing based on the RBT model. This has inevitably created competition for scarce police resources, and it highlights the need to strike a balance between the amount of testing performed to detect alcohol versus other drugs. Given that research continues to show drink driving as being riskier than drug driving alone, it is essential that current breath testing levels are not compromised in order to conduct more roadside drug tests.