Editorial: Hard core of drink-drivers a fair target

Campaigns aimed at educating motorists not to drink and drive have been one of the success stories of the past decade. In that time the number of fatal drink-drive crashes has dropped 80 per cent. But in one regard the campaigns have proved ineffectual. A small, hard-core group continues to drink and drive, even after being prosecuted several times for the offence. Repeat offenders make up about 40 per cent of the country's drink-drivers and, worse still, are among the heaviest drinkers. Immune to attempts to educate them, uncaring of the threat of being caught and unthinking of the menace they pose to other road-users, they are accidents waiting to happen.

Quite rightly, the police have always targeted these recidivists, seeking to get and keep them off the road before that accident happens. However, relatively hit-and-miss tactics have proved no answer, and the problem has persisted. The police have, therefore, developed a more systematic, intelligence-based approach, assembling databases containing photographs of the worst drink-drivers, their home and work addresses, and the extent of their previous drink-drive offending. They now have a better idea of who to target and when and where to deploy officers. In the case of the worst offenders, that means the use of covert surveillance, staking out homes, workplaces and pubs.

It is "bordering on harassment", fumes Auckland laywer Barry Hart.*

"We're moving towards a Gestapo-like police force if they're going to carry on doing that."

He believes the tactic is at odds with the Land Transport Act, saying its powers to stop and check drivers and cars do not imply the targeting of a specific group of people.

But that piece of legislation also includes phrases such "in the interests of road safety" and "in the interests of the public". Therein lies the reason this is a valid police response. Ensuring potential killers do not get behind the wheel is more important than the quibbles of civil libertarians. This is a persistent and dangerous problem, and each time drink-drivers reoffend they relinquish a larger slice of the right to circumspect treatment. For most, the well of public sympathy is utterly dry.

If there are qualms, they are that such surveillance is time-consuming and that there is much else to occupy the police. But if police concerns are heightened by telephone calls from alarmed neighbours and partners, it becomes difficult to justify not having a drink-driver under surveillance.

Recidivists are widely regarded as a final piece in the drink-driving jigsaw. They were much-mentioned by those who last year opposed the Transport Minister's proposal to reduce the legal limit for alcohol from 80mg a 100ml of blood to 50mg. According to the likes of the Automobile Association, targeting repeat offenders who drove with two to three times the legal limit on board would be by far the more effective way of reducing the road toll. Quite correctly also, much was made of judges not acting strongly enough against hard-core drink-drivers.

A more earnest approach by the judiciary would obviously help. But an important part of the equation must be to convince recidivists that they will be picked up whenever they drink and drive. That is where surveillance can play an important role, as will the Government's latest road safety package, which targets repeat offenders with roadside licence suspension and vehicle impoundment.

If recidivists know they are being monitored, and know that punishment is assured, they will be far less likely to chance it behind the wheel. Indeed, this seems to be the only sort of message they are likely to accept. The vast majority of motorists, who long ago recognised that drinking and driving do not mix, will be the winner. Civil liberties will not be a loser.


* CORRECTION: In the original version of this editorial, Barry Hart was incorrectly identified as the president of the Auckland Council for Civil Liberties, Barry Wilson.