Forty years ago police in Victoria began their incredibly successful focus on getting drink-drivers off the road.
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The state led the nation with its .05 laws that helped change community attitudes and most importantly, saved countless lives.
Over the decades this has also prevented scores of people from being maimed for life from crashes caused by drink-drivers.
This scourge has not been removed from our roads, nor will it probably ever be, but the community is infinitely better off today thanks to a lot of hard work and education.
Now it is clear there is another issue on our roads – people who take drugs then go for a drive.
Whether the ever-growing use of methaphetamine does indeed represent an “ice epidemic” as many suggest does not really matter when it comes to driver behaviour.
Just the fact that the number of drug-drivers being detected is becoming more and more of a problem is a great concern.
And the simple fact is that unlike alcohol where people’s bodies get rid of the substance over a set period of time depending on the number of standard of drinks they’ve had, illicit drugs can hang around for weeks.
That is an explosive unknown that could clearly have devastating consequences if an affected person gets behind the wheel of their car.
It is that context that makes the latest figures released by Wodonga police truly alarming.
The station’s highway patrol unit has carried out 298 roadside tests since early July for several drugs – cannabis, amphetamine and MDMA.
It is no overstatement then when they sum up the test results as “appalling”.
A total of 131 of these tests were positive, a strike rate of 44 per cent.
These statistics have to be considered with the knowledge that the police specifically target many drivers.
They know where some possible offenders live and in the interest of getting them off the road, make sure they are pulled over and tested.
But nevertheless, the figures are still high enough to suggest the use of drugs by drivers is more widespread than might have initially been thought.
The community’s safety is placed in great peril by these thoughtless, selfish idiots.
