Police Crying Wolf Must Quit Politicing

Candor Trust Media Release

Heather Wells Auckland Road police Manager made an astounding claim on Campbell live (Monday) - that she feels N.Z.'s drink driving problem is getting as bad as 20 or so years ago.

This is like a pub yarn and shows inability to adjust to the times say Candor Trust, as the numbers of fatal and serious injury crashes involving risky alcohol levels have steadily decreased.

They have dropped from 2000 in 1997 to around the 750 mark, though recidivists have been problematic lately.

So greatly misrepresenting the current situation does a disservice to the cause of road safety, note Candor Trust. "It diverts people from truly pressing toll issues. Even worse this inappropriate lobbying takes place while in uniform".

Unfortunately the Campbell program did not present balancing facts, and let the authority figure's wild claims stand. Even when constructive suggestions of MP Peter Brown regarding DUI recidivists (the real issue) were summarily dismissed.

The reason for such hyperbole being heaped on the Public by a few senior Police who've squandered too much waged time lobbying lately, must be rooted in "Treasury consciousness."

It was today announced that speeding fines are coming down while demerit points will be used more. Naturally this will create a shortfall, and Treasury is casting about for a way to recoup the upcoming loss in it's road safety account.

An alcohol limit drop with instant fines is the perfect solution, to Treasuries woes if not to reducing road trauma which it will not do as per much good evidence.

The hoo hah and Police excitement over catching a mere 125 drivers at Auckland city checkpoints over the weekend is deserving of a grammy award, say Candor's Educators who are less than amused.

"Anyone working in the field of DUI knows that the very low percent of tested drivers over the limit in the Auckland sting would be regarded as quite commendable in any other country".

"And perhaps even as a sign that the amount of testing is excessive given the diminishing returns for effort - what would be frowed upon however would be the hundreds of druggies Ms Wells checkpoint likely let pass through".

But there is perhaps an agenda for excess levels of breathalysing right now, as you won't catch more people and so create a "trend" you can run to the media about, unless you do test quite frantically.

The number of drink drivers has not changed - any traffic scientist will tell you the problem demographic in the driving population is fairly constant across time and cultures - it's around 10-15 percent - and alcoholics will always be among us.

The only real change is in the number of hours allocated to catch the drink drivers which has been altering quite massively. In the 03/04 year the total hours allocated to drink drive enforcement were 574,140.

In 06/07 the total "alcohol hours" were enhanced to 634,350 hrs which represents over 60,000 extra hours.

This more than explains the increased numbers of drink drive prosecutions - not accompanied by any sustained greatly increased rates of drink driving & related harm.

Drink driving harm is up somewhat in the short term, but this has no relation to the current limit and the solutions which are obvious do not lie in limit reviews.

The recent spike in harm is related to increasing drug use per strong evidence, and also to limp wristed penalties. An alcohol limit drop is the weakest of many possible options for knpcking the toll.

The road toll can't drop until the politicing stops, Police get back to Policing instead of trying to write the statutes, and a Multi Party Advisory Committee charged with examining all issues is convened.

ends

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