Alcohol, Drugs and Driving
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Alcohol, drugs and driving - Going beyond RTA 1988 Section 5A
IRAS ID
277489
Contact name
Atholl Johnston
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Professor
Duration of Study in the UK
5 years, 0 months, 0 days
Research summary
In 2012, the Prime Minister David Cameron, concerned to tackle increased road safety problems caused by drug-driving, set out to reinforce UK road traffic legislation. The aim was to help police enforce Section 4 of the Road Traffic Act, so as to be better able to demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that a driver was unfit to drive through drink or drugs. Professor Johnston was appointed to two expert panels convened by The Department for Transport (DfT) and The Home Office to look at the evidence and to advise on which drugs to include in legislation and at what blood concentration the limits should be set.
Following the advice of these panels, per se concentration limits for driving were set for seventeen drugs and new drug driving legislation came into force in March 2015. The impact of the legislation has been profound. In August 2017 a report evaluating the effectiveness of the first year of implementation found that the legislation on drug driving is working. The new offence has led to additional police activity against drug drivers, and higher prosecution and conviction rates. Section 4 offence conviction rates have been approximately 80% since 2012, and in 2015, proceedings brought for Section 5A offences had a conviction rate of 98% – which is similar to those achieved for drink-driving (96%). The introduction of the Section 5A drug-driving offence has resulted in over 40,000 additional convictions for drug-driving.
However, only 17 drugs have Section 5A limits. The aim of this research is to determine what other drugs allegedly impaired drivers stopped by the police might be taking. The purpose of this application is to gain a favourable approval for ASI to carry out further analysis of blood samples submitted for Section 5A analysis (which would ordinarily be discarded after analysis) to achieve this.
REC name
London - Fulham Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
20/LO/0244
Date of REC Opinion
24 Mar 2020
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion