Department for Transport considers random roadside breath tests

Motorists face random roadside drink-drive tests under proposed new laws being considered by the Department for Transport.

A Government-funded report has recommended the change as an “effective” way to reduce drink-driving, and it has already led to a surge in roadside tests in Northern Ireland since mandatory breath tests were allowed in the region.

Police are currently only allowed to breath test a motorist if they suspect the driver has been drinking, has been involved in an accident, or has committed a traffic offence.

Mandatory testing would give police the powers to stop vehicles without suspicion and conduct breath tests on any driver at any time.

“There is strong evidence of the effectiveness of mandatory random breath testing, particularly when well publicised and when targeted,” said the report by the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (Pacts).

“Mandatory random breath testing can be effective at reducing alcohol impaired driving, alcohol related crashes and associated fatal and non-fatal injuries even when it is undertaken only for a relatively short period of time.”

The study, funded by the Department for Transport, said that a continuous decline in drink-driving rates since the late 1960s had stalled in the past decade and an average of 240 people a year had been killed in alcohol-fuelled crashes since 2010.

It said that drivers believed they were “less likely to be caught” because of a decline in police enforcement after the number of people subjected to roadside breath tests fell by 63 per cent between 2009 and 2019.

This is believed to have been driven in part by a sharp drop in dedicated traffic police officers.

However, the study indicated there was strong support for random breath testing, with an AA poll of members finding that 79 per cent were in favour of the police being able to breathalyse a driver at any time.

Even among a 2018 poll of drivers who drank alcohol at least once a week, almost 30 per cent supported random testing being brought in and the increasing the frequency of breath testing by police.

In Australia, where police can deploy random breath tests, research has shown that it successfully deters drink drivers from taking to the wheel.

A University of Queensland study found that for every ten per cent increase in breath tests per driver, there was a 0.15 fall in the rate of drink-related traffic accidents per 100,000 motorists.

To introduce mandatory breath testing in Great Britain, Section 6 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 would need to be amended to provide a general and unrestricted power to require anyone who is driving a motor vehicle to cooperate with a preliminary breath test.

Pacts admitted random breath testing would require extra resources for traffic police who have suffered significant cuts, but it pointed to Northern Ireland where where the number of tests had increased from 27,446 in 2015 to 43,712 in 2017 after they were introduced.

It said the Government should introduce a trial, modelled on Australia where police cadets are deployed to carry out the tests to help reduce the costs.

“Pacts believes that even limited amounts of mandatory breath testing at checkpoints, undertaken for example during Christmas drink drive campaigns combined with effective messaging would reduce drink driving,” its report said.

It also recommended the legal drink-drive limit should be reduced by more than a third because of concerns that large numbers of drivers no longer saw it as a serious deterrent. The current limit of 80mg per 100ml of blood has been unchanged since 1967.

A DfT spokesman said: “We thank Pacts for their report, which we will now look at and consider in detail.”