Report ranks Beaches high for drink driving
An NRMA Bust the Boozers report released in November, 2023 ranks the Northern Beaches fourth-highest for drink driving offences in NSW for 2022 – and third in metropolitan Sydney.
The Beaches recorded 455 drink driving incidents, up from 341 incidents in 2021, behind Blacktown (567), Sydney (579) and Central Coast (919).
Alcohol is a factor in 17 per cent of fatalities on NSW roads, the NRMA report claims.
NRMA spokesperson Peter Khoury said in a statement that change was needed on how the state dealt with drink driving.
“It is abhorrent that we are still having to tell people to stop drink driving,” Mr Khoury said. “Over 40 years ago the NRMA launched Australia’s first-ever drink driving campaign. Yet with almost one-in-five deaths alcohol related it’s clear we have so much work to do.”
The Northern Beaches road safety plan 2019-2024 advocates for road safety and develops initiatives that contribute to road safety. One initiative is Plan B, advising people to have a ‘Plan B’ to get home safely, including arranging other transport or have a designated driver on a night out.
The NSW Road Safety Progress Report 2022 said over 30,000 interlock licenses have been issued since 2015. This system, for high-range, mid-range and repeat offenders involves only driving a vehicle with an alcohol interlock device and has been shown to reduce reoffending.
The NRMA surveyed 3,300 members in August 2023 and found that 12 per cent had driven while over the limit, and 11 per cent drove the following day, even when they thought they were still over the limit.
Getting caught drink driving was ‘somewhat unlikely,’ thought 26 per cent of those surveyed – even though 21 per cent said they were stopped by a RBT in the previous six months.
Almost 3.8 million RBTs were conducted in NSW in 2022, but NRMA says the state needs more than seven million sites and that RBT levels plummeted during COVID.