Road Safety Authority to launch first campaign to combat drug-driving
Alison Healy
Gardaí detected 218 incidents of drug-driving on Irish roads last year and the issue is now being made a priority of the Road Safety Authority, an Oireachtas committee has been told.
Addressing concern over the difficulty in detecting drug-taking drivers, the authority said it was planning its first drug-driving campaign this year.
The agency's chief executive Noel Brett said driving under the influence of illicit drugs was a "significant concern" and he was also worried about the role of over-the-counter drugs and prescription medicines in road crashes.
The 218 incidents of drug- driving compared to 18,821 drunk-driving incidents during the same period. However, Garda Commissioner Fachtna Murphy noted the intoxicated-driving incidents included alcohol or drugs or a combination of both.
Both men were speaking yesterday at the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Transport.
Mr Murphy rejected a suggestion from committee chairman Frank Fahey (FF) that 218 drug- driving detections was a very small number and said it was significant in the circumstances. He noted, however, that unlike alcohol testing, there was no hand-held device available here to detect drugs in motorists.
Mr Brett said that the use of more than one drug was a particular concern. He said that a person might take cocaine early in the day followed by cannabis and perhaps alcohol later on.
Drugs were complex substances, he said, as a drug such as cannabis could be detected in the bloodstream six or eight weeks after being taken. He said a hand-held device was used in Australia which tested saliva for drugs and produced results in three minutes. Mr Brett described this device as "very, very impressive" but said it might have legal implications.
He said the Road Safety Authority had also expressed concern to the Irish Pharmaceutical Union about the role of legal drugs in impairing driving ability.
One in five fatal collisions was as a direct result of driver fatigue and Mr Brett said prescription drugs or over-the-counter remedies could have a role in this tiredness. Research had shown that opening windows or turning up the radio did not help in alleviating fatigue, Mr Brett said. "It makes you worse actually."
The Government's failure to advance plans for the introduction of 600 privatised speed cameras was criticised by several committee members yesterday. The plans were announced in 2006, but appear to have been put on hold because of cost issues.
Mr Murphy said speed cameras were "only ever intended to be another aid in enforcement" and their introduction was a "policy decision at Government level".
The committee also heard that research had found that suicide could account for up to 3 per cent of single-vehicle crashes in some regions.
Mr Brett said he did not want to emphasise this fact as it could lead to copycat behaviour.