10k breath tests nab 100 drunks (or thereabouts)

rhino said :

What do people think of the BAC limit in Australia?
It’s 0.05 in Australia but 0.08 in the rest of the anglo western world.
The fact that a middle aged woman managed to get to her car and drive without crashing at 0.258 might be an indication that someone at 0.08 (less than a third as much) may actually be able to drive and react quite reasonably.

Not me. I could probably drive safely at 0.05 if I was paying attention but at 0.05 I really am not.

In Australia every car crash where someone gets hurt is unusual. It gets on the news. This is good.

NellyBean said :

I’ve had my mouth swabbed a couple of times by road side RBT’s, it takes 20 minutes.

It would only take 20 minutes if you spent 15 minutes arguing with the Sgt.

Cannabis not illegal in the ACT? What have you been smoking? It is illegal, not sure why you would think otherwise.

rhino said :

ezy10z said :

Does anyone have an understanding about how they police drug driving? I understand its a mouth swab, but can police pull you over for a random swab as they do for a random breath test? and exactly what drugs are detected? what if you had smoked a joint a few night earlier, would this show up?

That’s one issue I see. From what I’ve read it does appear that you can be picked up for it long after the effects have fully worn off. Some things may last an hour or less and be detectable for a few days. That’s equivalent to being pulled over on a wednesday for going out drinking on the weekend. Hardly reasonable really. Especially when cannabis is not illegal in the ACT. I’m not certain what the detectable times are though, but I did google it a year ago or so and some of the times were unreasonable.

What do people think of the BAC limit in Australia?
It’s 0.05 in Australia but 0.08 in the rest of the anglo western world.
The fact that a middle aged woman managed to get to her car and drive without crashing at 0.258 might be an indication that someone at 0.08 (less than a third as much) may actually be able to drive and react quite reasonably.

ezy10z said :

Does anyone have an understanding about how they police drug driving? I understand its a mouth swab, but can police pull you over for a random swab as they do for a random breath test? and exactly what drugs are detected? what if you had smoked a joint a few night earlier, would this show up?

That’s one issue I see. From what I’ve read it does appear that you can be picked up for it long after the effects have fully worn off. Some things may last an hour or less and be detectable for a few days. That’s equivalent to being pulled over on a wednesday for going out drinking on the weekend. Hardly reasonable really. Especially when cannabis is not illegal in the ACT. I’m not certain what the detectable times are though, but I did google it a year ago or so and some of the times were unreasonable.

CraigT said :

steveu said :

This still means there were 100 idiots on the road.

There are thousands of idiots on the roads, and you don’t need to breathtest them to identify them

Classic point in case just an hour ago two absolute farktards thought they’d drive through red lights at Canberra/Ipswich Monaro Hwy bound. The totally unbelievable thing was that the lights were green for traffic on Canberra Ave both directions for approx. 3 seconds prior to them driving through the intersection and had it not been for the SUV who was in the right hand lane next to me stopping to avoid being hit and my instinctive reaction to also stop i would’ve been T-boned,quite possibly,by both farktards in their 4 wheel drives.

magiccar9 said :

bundah said :

To the Lyneham woman caught with a reading of 0.258,may i say very impressive drinking and then to get behind the wheel,awesome,you must be so proud!

I think its pretty impressive she managed to get to the RBT from her local watering hole. Actually with a reading like that I’m impressed she managed to get to her car.

On another note, the cops say they’re disappointed at the number of people caught. To be honest I’m quite amazed. Out of 10k tests only ~100 were over. If my math is correct that’s ~1% right? I think that’s pretty good considering. I’d be more included to be outraged at something like 10 – 20% myself.

That was 100 people that got caught. Who knows how many more were driving, and whether 1% is a representative sample of the proportion of drivers that are legally drunk at any given time. Estimating hidden populations is notoriously difficult. I presume the booze vans camp out at places where they think they’re likely to intercept the drivers, but I dunno. Maybe the drunk drivers stay away from the obvious places, and coppers adjust their plans to account for this?

steveu said :

This still means there were 100 idiots on the road.

There are thousands of idiots on the roads, and you don’t need to breathtest them to identify them

magiccar9 said :

bundah said :

To the Lyneham woman caught with a reading of 0.258,may i say very impressive drinking and then to get behind the wheel,awesome,you must be so proud!

I think its pretty impressive she managed to get to the RBT from her local watering hole. Actually with a reading like that I’m impressed she managed to get to her car.

On another note, the cops say they’re disappointed at the number of people caught. To be honest I’m quite amazed. Out of 10k tests only ~100 were over. If my math is correct that’s ~1% right? I think that’s pretty good considering. I’d be more included to be outraged at something like 10 – 20% myself.

That figure scares the crap out of me, that’s 100 potential fatal collisions or 100+ people in our hospitals.

This still means there were 100 idiots on the road. 1% is a good figure on face value against the sample size, but taken into the context of things it is still a worry that some people havent got the basic respect and intelligence to understand that driving whilst intoxicated is a selfish and dangerous act.

Please have a good time, dont carry on like a turkey – but just catch a cab or arrange a lift.

bundah said :

To the Lyneham woman caught with a reading of 0.258,may i say very impressive drinking and then to get behind the wheel,awesome,you must be so proud!

I think its pretty impressive she managed to get to the RBT from her local watering hole. Actually with a reading like that I’m impressed she managed to get to her car.

On another note, the cops say they’re disappointed at the number of people caught. To be honest I’m quite amazed. Out of 10k tests only ~100 were over. If my math is correct that’s ~1% right? I think that’s pretty good considering. I’d be more included to be outraged at something like 10 – 20% myself.

ezy10z said :

Does anyone have an understanding about how they police drug driving? I understand its a mouth swab, but can police pull you over for a random swab as they do for a random breath test? and exactly what drugs are detected? what if you had smoked a joint a few night earlier, would this show up?

I’ve had my mouth swabbed a couple of times by road side RBT’s, it takes 20 minutes and you can’t put anything in your mouth during the process, not even water.

The SGT wasn’t keen to answer my questions regarding exactly what drugs he was testing for, but from what I’ve read, Marijuana and Cocaine can show up in saliva up to 24 hours after consumption. Amphetamines can be up to 3 days.

To the Lyneham woman caught with a reading of 0.258,may i say very impressive drinking and then to get behind the wheel,awesome,you must be so proud!

BimboGeek said :

The police said: “Our message is simple: drink or drive.”

I think they mean drink NAND drive!

OR means that the naughty option is doing neither.

Even to say drink XOR drive is a little unfair on pedestrian teetotalers.

Can they please run their marketing slogans by a mathematician before they embarrass themselves any further?

Apparently for some people, the message isn’t simple. They’ll need a mathematician to simplify it further for you, Bimbogeek. Although making it any simpler may involve them drawing the message with a crayon.

ezy10z said :

Does anyone have an understanding about how they police drug driving? I understand its a mouth swab, but can police pull you over for a random swab as they do for a random breath test? and exactly what drugs are detected? what if you had smoked a joint a few night earlier, would this show up?

From watching RBT my understanding is that yes they can just give you a random swab test. It detects amphetamine type drugs as well as cannabis, although the testing devices don’t seem to be anywhere near accurate enough IMO. I’ve never seen anyone get swabbed in the A.C.T however, so I don’t know how often they test for drugs as opposed to alcohol.

The police said: “Our message is simple: drink or drive.”

I think they mean drink NAND drive!

OR means that the naughty option is doing neither.

Even to say drink XOR drive is a little unfair on pedestrian teetotalers.

Can they please run their marketing slogans by a mathematician before they embarrass themselves any further?

Does anyone have an understanding about how they police drug driving? I understand its a mouth swab, but can police pull you over for a random swab as they do for a random breath test? and exactly what drugs are detected? what if you had smoked a joint a few night earlier, would this show up?