Dreaded Drager returns to haunt drunk drivers

1852 08.10.6 JMPD launched the Dragar Intoxometer today at their newly refurbished offices cnr Loveday and Village Rds. L-R: Prosecutors Darren Braam and Bennie Makholoane test the machine. Picture: Cara Viereckl SONY DSC

1852 08.10.6 JMPD launched the Dragar Intoxometer today at their newly refurbished offices cnr Loveday and Village Rds. L-R: Prosecutors Darren Braam and Bennie Makholoane test the machine. Picture: Cara Viereckl SONY DSC

Published Jul 4, 2016

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Cape Town - The Drager breathalyser will be back in operation from August 2016 in a bid to clamp down on drunk drivers.

In 2016 alone the Provincial Department of Health Forensic Pathology Services have reported 670 deaths in the Western Cape that resulted from road traffic injuries. Between 2013 to 2015, many road deaths were linked to alcohol use - mainly pedestrians.

The provincial transport and public works department said about 55 percent of the road traffic fatalities so far in 2016 occurred between midnight on Friday and 6am on Monday morning. This is the time when most people use alcohol.

Blood alcohol test results for 2230 people who died on the road between 2013 and 2015 showed that more than half had been drinking. Of the group that tested positive for alcohol, 1074 had more than 0.05 grams of alcohol per 100 ml of blood (the legal limit for drivers) while 584 had 0.2 or more - four times the legal limit for drivers.

Provincial transport and public works MEC Donald Grant said the most worrying feature of the tidal wave of alcohol abuse on the road was the amount of pedestrians killed with high levels of alcohol in their blood.

“From our sample from 2013 to 2015, 366, or 62.6 percent of the 584 persons whose post-mortem blood tests came back over 0.2g were pedestrians. This trend seems to be continuing in 2016, with pedestrian traffic fatalities bucking the overall downward trend of deaths among drivers and passengers.

“Drivers who continue to heedlessly risk their lives and the lives of other citizens, who destroy taxpayer-funded infrastructure, and who drag policing resources away from attending to other crimes are reminded that the Drager breathalyser will be coming back into operation on 1 August 2016,” said Grant.

Swift and severe consequences

Strategic co-ordinator of Safely Home Hector Eliott said the use of evidentiary breathalysers meant that DUI convictions could be secured within a matter of days rather than years.

“Apart from the efficiencies inherent in such a system, evidentiary breathalysers create a perception of swift and severe consequences, which is one of the keys to the behaviour change needed.

“Safely Home is one of the departmentâ’s campaigns to reduce the number of deaths on the province’s roads.”

But, he said, there was no legislation that allowed law enforcement to breath test pedestrians.

“We have made proposals to national government to introduce legislation that would empower law enforcement in this regard.”

He said the cost of road trauma to the provincial government worked out to R1.08 billion a year, where at least 50 percent was directly alcohol related.

Cape Times

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