South Australian’s police force is set to organize roadside testing for cocaine to crack down on drug-related accidents from early 2025, police commissioner Grant Stevens announced on Monday.
Stevens said that the measures are the need of the hour after reports of a growing number of serious crashes over the past years, 9 News reported.
The police will use a new device for saliva testing after selecting drivers on a random basis. While the current testing regime involves methamphetamine, MDMA, and cannabis, the new initiative will be expanded to cocaine testing as well.
“In 2023, 31 lives lost and 112 serious injuries on South Australian roads were due to driver or rider testing positive to drugs,” Stevens said. “The number of serious crashes involving drivers with cocaine has increased in the past five years. Between 2018 and 2023, cocaine was implicated in nine fatal crashes — this is unacceptable. It is crucial that drug testing includes cocaine to keep these dangerous drivers from our roads.”
Drivers caught using illicit drugs face severe penalties, including a hefty fine of AU$849, a mandatory AU$102 victims of crime levy fee, accumulation of four demerit points, loss of driving privileges for at least three months, and risk of vehicle impoundment, ABC reported.
“The system that is applied for the drug testing process is absolutely identical so drivers who are stopped for a random drug test won’t notice any difference,” Commissioner Stevens said. “[We’re] just expanding the range of drugs we’re able to identify through that process. We’re hoping that people stop and think about their road user behaviour to make sure that they take responsibility for what is a very important task that requires our total concentration,” he said.
