After years of alcohol checkpoint numbers falling well short of targets, the Police have been back out in force and testing at levels not seen in a decade.
The number of tests in 2022/23 totalled 2,662,852. This was over a million more tests than the previous 12-month total of 1,592,286.
Increasing the number of alcohol tests is vitally needed.
Last year New Zealand had 111 road deaths where a driver or rider was above the alcohol limit or refused to be tested.
Increasing the number of alcohol tests is vitally needed.
Compare that to New South Wales in Australia, where 36 people died from alcohol related crashes over the same period.
Just let that sink in for a moment: New Zealand with our population of 5.1 million had 111 drunk driving deaths last year, while New South Wales, with a population of 8.1 million, had 36. On a per capita basis, we had five times the rate of drunk driving deaths.
“New Zealand has been losing the battle against drunk driving, which is bloody tragic,” says AA road safety spokesperson Dylan Thomsen.
“But the recent increase in alcohol checkpoints is the start of us turning that around. What that means for drivers is you are more likely to be stopped and checked for alcohol this summer; just don’t take any risks.”
If you are going to be driving, the best thing to do is give alcohol a miss completely.
If you can’t do that, limit yourself to one drink, maximum, make sure you have a sober driver, or arrange some other way of getting home safely.
Dylan says that the AA wants to give credit to the Police for getting the alcohol testing numbers back up, especially given the huge challenges officers have faced in recent years and the demands and pressure they deal with every day.
“We hope this is the start of an upward trend that will see Police consistently hitting their screening targets. More testing to stop drunk drivers will ultimately mean fewer crashes, less deaths and fewer people seriously hurt.”
What do you think? Are New Zealand's roadside alcohol testing numbers good enough? Share your thoughts in a letter to the editor.
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