Kerre Woodham: Our drink driving numbers are quite frankly, unacceptable

Yesterday I touched briefly on the fact that yet another study has come out showing that alcohol is considered one of the most harmful drugs and numerous studies around the world, the latest from New Zealand, show the level of harm it does to others, as well as the level of harm it does to users.

And of course more people use alcohol than they do meth, so obviously more people are going to be affected. But when you look at just a sample of drunk driving stories - this is a handful.  

A 19-year-old woman's drink driving breath test was very high. Police said at the time of her arrest, another motorist had followed her when she became concerned by her driving and when the car stopped, the motorist removed the key. The woman was fined $800, sentenced to six-month supervision, disqualified from driving for 28 days, after which she must have an alcohol interlock device fitted.  

A man who police described as one of the worst recidivist drink drivers in Whangārei has been sent to jail for his 13th drink driving conviction. Shailendra Kumar Deo was so drunk behind the wheel on two occasions within two days of each other that members of the public had to pull him over and call police. The court heard how he was so incapacitated that on both occasions he was unable to complete breath testing procedures.  

A third story. A recidivist drink driver who killed a woman while once again driving under the influence initially blamed the fatal crash on a rabbit running onto the road.

The judge said there was only one reason why a person was killed and that was because Holley Levorsen-Persson got behind the wheel while drunk. She was sentenced to 11 months home detention for drink driving, killing a person and driving while disqualified.

So is this a health issue - an addiction issue? Should we be focusing more on the addiction centres, the rehab centres?

If you've got people who are being sentenced for drunk driving appearing on the 8th, 9th and 11th, 13th charge - then that says that's a much bigger problem than just drink driving, surely. But people need to be safe from these recidivist drink drivers.  

It would be fine if the only people they killed were themselves – but once they stick that key in the ignition, they're making a choice to drive. But it's not only them that they kill. They kill innocents on the road as well.

Is it a failure in policing issue?

Certainly Naila Hassan, who spoke to Mike Hosking this morning, from the police, inferred that if police were dealing with so many mental health issues and family harm issues, then perhaps they'd have a better chance of meeting their target.

But again, a lot of the mental health issues are around alcohol. A lot of the family harm issues have alcohol in them as well. Are we doing this wrong?

I mean, according to the AA and according to a crash investigator the checkpoints work. The police had a target of 3 million drivers being breath tested for a reason. Because they too believe it works.

They haven't met that target because they're doing the job of social workers and mental health workers. So is it more police? Is it trying to get the focus back onto road policing?

Getting those checkpoints up, keep making them visible? Or is it a health issue that we should be dealing with?  

Either way – it’s unacceptable. 111 drunk driving deaths in 2022. I don't know how many of them were innocents and how many got what they quite frankly deserved, but I'd love to hear from you.

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