The proposals by ACT Attorney-General Gary Humphries and Urban Services Minister Tony De Domenico to lift penalties for drink-driving are out of proportion to the problem. It is another example of knee-jerk reaction and the need to be seen to do something. That said, there are one or two elements of his package that have merit.
Under present arrangements, people between 0.05 and 0.08 usually get an on the spot fine of $500. Above that, the penalty is a minimum three-month licence suspension and a fine up to $1000, but usually in $300 to $750 range depending on reading and antecedents. Suspensions vary up to 12 months, once again depending on reading and antecedents. Provisional licensees have special offences coming in at 0.02. Generally, drivers could get special licences to drive for work.
The current system has heavier penalties for second offences within five years with a mandatory cancellation of licence with a requirement that the driver reapply to the court to get the licence back at some indeterminate time and show that he or she had overcome his or her alcohol problem. There was no provision for a special licence.
The system was the product of the Australian Law Reform Commission and smacked of social meddling. The courts made the scheme more practical by getting around the legislation in an artful way to avoid the mandatory three-month suspension and the lack of special licences for second offenders in appropriate cases … in the case of the former where people had low readings and had otherwise driven blamelessly for many years; in the case of the latter where disproportionate hardship through job loss would occur.
The commission’s scheme was changed slightly with the introduction of the 0.05 limit, which was a Federal Government demand in return for road funding, imposed on the basis that the Federal Government had to be seen to be doing something.
Mr Humphries proposal has the virtues of eliminating the indefinite penalty for second offenders and eliminating the unnecessary court application for second offenders to get their licence back; of forcing first offenders to go through the shaming process of reapplying for their licence, going through the test and wearing P plates for a year; of clearing up the anomaly of making the limit for unlicensed drivers 0.05 whereas the limit for provisional licensees is 0.02; and of breaking the offences into three grades of seriousness 0.05 to 0.08; 0.08 to 0.15 and over 0.15, though one could argue the courts do the last anyway.
But Mr Humphries scheme too draconian in two respects … in overall minimum suggested penalties (particularly in the 0.05 to 0.08 range) and in tightening up on special licences. The latter, as shadow attorney-general Rosemary Follett points out, will punish the family unfairly. The former is an easy political option. It costs nothing and is electorally popular. It will make some people feel good, but it will achieve nothing in addition to what can be achieve with existing penalties. Those penalties are a significant deterrent to those who would otherwise not be deterred and increasing them is unlikely to deter the remainder who are likely to be impervious to penalty. All increased penalties of longer suspensions will do is alienate and aggravate people who would otherwise respond to more appropriate chastisement and the humiliation of wearing the P plate for a year.
These new penalties seem to have been drawn like a rabbit from a hat. The bulk of the good work on the road toll, especially that relating to drink driving, has already been done. There has been no significant evidence of increase death and injury on the road attributable to drink driving, and even if there had been there is little to suggest that increasing penalties will provide a solution. Far greater awareness of the problem and greater changes in people’s conduct would be achieved by greater police presence with random breath-testing. The ACT policy seems to be to catch drink-drivers at drink spots late at night; the NSW policy is to create visibility any time any where. The latter is a sounder policy. But because it requires extra spending, Mr Humphries the cheap macho solution of increasing penalties.
Mr Humphries seems to have grabbed what figure is available to support his case. He says despite a 1.16 per cent drop in the number of random breath tests carried out last financial year, the number of people found driving over the limit increased by 6 per cent. But in September, the AFP’s most senior traffic offer, Superintendent Peter McDonald said, “”As far as random breath testing goes, we’ve done 11,500 more tests this year than at the same time last year. What’s pleasing about that is that the number of positive tests is only 647 … that’s down by 100.”
The ACT is small enough to prove the Disraelian adage every time.
If Mr Humphries were serious about reducing death and injury on the road he would reduce the speed limit in the suburbs to 50km/h and introduce speed and red light cameras, but that is far too electorally unpopular. He should look at ways of changing road environments to moderate speed, but that is too costly. These things, which came out of an in-depth study of ACT crashes by consulting engineers sponsored by the NRMA and the ACT Road Safety Trust, seem to be far too difficult for Mr Humphries and Mr De Domenico. That study, incidentally, made no mention of drink-driving penalties.
This episode, followed closely on his statement about penalties for armed robbery, puts Mr Humphries squarely in the Bob Carr school of criminology by public relations. Members of the Assembly should retain the one or two sensible reforms and knock the rest of this populist nonsense on the head. Once again, we need to exercise our minds not our knees.