Memorandum from Dtec International Ltd
(RS 22)
To paraphrase your task, "to further reduce
the deaths and injuries from road accidents especially in the
15 to 19 year age group, by the year 2010". This requires
something that is available now, can be implemented immediately
and will have a rapid and significant effect on the annual statistics.
IN SUMMARY
The immediate implementation for use by the
Police of a credible and globally accepted road side drug screener
would instantly help deter drug users from driving after consumption.
The subsequent rapid increase in prosecutions would act as further
deterrent and have the desired significant effect on UK figures
in the next 24 months. We know 18% of fatalities are positive
for illicit drugs so if only 3% of the total fatalities were caused
by drugs we would save over 100 lives a year!
The equipment is available now as DrugWipe5+
and is being very successfully deployed in Germany, Switzerland,
Austria, Czech Republic, Iceland, Poland, Finland and Australia.
They all use various forms of law to allow the stopping and screening
of drivers with subsequent laboratory confirmation and different
penalties for those prosecuted.
Presently, we have insufficient dedicated traffic
officers and we only have a percentage of those traffic officers
trained to perform the Field Impairment Test (FIT). Performing
the FIT test in a safe environment is not always possible and
adds delays. Any failures to the FIT must then wait to be transported
to the station and held awaiting attendance of the Forensic Medical
Examiner (FME). The FME, after this possible delay of one to two
hours may no longer "see" the drugged state and decide
not to take a blood sample.
The bottom line is, drug drivers, unless extremely
impaired, are not fed into the system because the system is
too slow with the drugs having worn off before the decision to
take a blood sample is made. The taking of the blood sample needs
to be as quick as possible after the offence and possibly performed
by a nurse or technician.
In the UK, the charge is unfit through drink
or drugs. If the officer "sees" bad driving, then
that is the evidence and the point of charge. Any further work
is only to show if the observed bad driving was due to drink or
drugs, or in a lot of cases, both. If the officer did not see
the bad driving but came across an accident or incident, then
a FIT test will be needed to show impairment. In both cases, a
large number of traffic officers have told my company that the
use of the simple road side screener, gives a very strong indication
to the officer that drugs are involved and with that confidence,
the officer can initiate the priority procedures and they incur
the significant cost implications in the knowledge that a prosecution
is likely.
The use of a screener at the road side is already
allowed from the Railways and Transport Safety Act 2003 (RATS)
and any positives should be made a priority. A rapid FIT test
performed by the Police officer, and without delay the
FME or a suitable technician, take a blood sample for laboratory
analysis.
The ideal and possible solution for the future,
as proposed by CC Med Hughes whilst ACPO lead on Roads Policing,
would be the use of a simple screening device at the road side
and very promptly back to have blood sampled by a technician,
followed by prosecution under a zero tolerance law if illegal
drugs were confirmed at the laboratory.
Dtec International is already screening significant
numbers of UK safety critical employees such as bus and coach
drivers for drugs, but also screens Police officers as part of
the Home Office recommendations.
It is my belief that the fundamental problem
still lies in the Department for Transport having the road safety
targets and the Home Office, through the Police Authorities and
Chief Constables, having the where with all to enforce the law.
No matter what the Ministers profess as interdepartmental cooperation,
this does not appear to work sufficiently well.
IN DETAIL
Answers to the specific terms of reference.
1. To what extent have targets for casualty
reduction been a useful tool for focusing professional activity?
I believe the fundamental problem still lies
in the Department for Transport having the road safety targets
and the Home Office, through the Police Authorities and Chief
Constables, having the where with all. This does not appear to
work sufficiently well enough, no matter what the Ministers profess
as interdepartmental cooperation and specifically reported to
a past Transport Committee by the then incumbents.
2. What further measures need to be adopted
to reduce deaths and injuries arising from drinking and driving?
See one.
Accept that drug driving is a real and significant
problem.
The real question should perhaps be "why
does drug driving not appear on Government priorities?"
We are not using available resources to measure
drug driving properly now, nor are we planning to put a system
in place in the foreseeable future. Therefore, if it is not measured,
it cannot be listed or prioritised, so it remains largely unaddressed.
3. How does Great Britain compare with other
EU countries in its approach to reducing deaths and injuries?
In my personal view, not as well as it should
or could, especially considering the availability of solutions
like road side drug driver screening.
It could be construed from the statistics presented
by the EU so far, that so long as some of the "other"
worse performing EU states improve to being half as good as the
UK, then the EU over all target will be met with little cost or
effort from the UK.
From this, it appears that little or low priority
has been given to a problem that is generally accepted to exist
in the UK and is accepted as existing in many other EU countries.
Why has resource not been used to gaining a
hard data set on the problem of drug driving?
Why is the writing of a specification for a
simple road side screening device to be used by police, taking
so long with very little apparent priority from the committee
of experts that appear to be steering the detailed specification?
Why are the proposed requirements for the UK
specification so tight and strict, so as to rule out any currently
available technology that is found acceptable all around the world.
The many other countries find the sensitivity is OK, the selectivity
is OK, the range of drugs is OK, the operating parameters of warm
and cold weather are OK. But apparently this is not good enough
for the UK. Why are we so special?
4. How do approaches in reductions in risk
on the roads compare to those adopted in other modes of transport?
We have been successfully screening for drug
driving in industry for 10 years now. My company has seen five
positives in January alone and all from "professional"
bus, coach and truck drivers. My company is only one of several
in this industry.
Another view could be that Government highlighting
to industry to reduce the one in four traffic accidents that happen
whilst at work, is a good move. Define a problem and find a route
to try and solve that problem. Or is it a way of potentially reducing
the departments accident statistics with out any great spend from
the department? Both, I presume. But is this another indication
of no data, so no priority so no resource and the only way left
open to the department is to push some one else to pay, in this
case industry its self?
5. Are there specific blockages caused by
shortages of appropriately trained and skilled staff?
The blockage is in the lack of priority because
drug driving is not being measured. Then, due to the two ministries
not co operating sufficiently and the other priorities placed
on the police resource, sufficient appropriately trained traffic
police officers are not present on the roads.
The last Transport Committee report on the efficient
use of technology considered the use of a road side screener,
discussed DrugWipe specifically and concluded that not enough
was being done by the two departments to address the problem of
drug driving.
Police are skilled enough to implement use of
DrugWipe with less than two hours training. The remainder of the
process already exists but is purely procedural and needs to be
altered slightly and streamlined significantly. This is routinely
done already in 8 countries and in hundreds of thousands of tests
per year with our DrugWipe device alone. Why do we in the UK think
we are any different or more complex than these other countries?
If we are not careful, a blockage to any progress
will effectively be put in place by the Department of Transport
and the Home Office in the guise of a Type Approval Specification.
The process of writing the specification has now already added
five years delay, and the last draft requires any kit to be able
to function at extremes of physical conditions temp etc not seen
in this country and to tolerances and levels beyond the capabilities
of today's technology. If this Type Approval specification is
finalised in its current form as seen in the fourth and last draft
of nearly a year ago, it will prevent the introduction of a road
side screener in the UK for many more years.
DrugWipe5+ is used in the heat of Australia
and mid European summers, in the cold winters of Iceland and Finland.
DrugWipe detects reliably and regularly at the lowest levels required
to see a drug that is currently causing impairment to the suspected
driver. There are numerous companies with equipment on the market,
and most have been tested extensively by 10 or more countries
in the ROSITA and DRUID European Union funded trials. Many devices
are more suitable for certain uses and environments found away
from the road side, but Securetec has been chosen by many countries
and has become the global market leader in road side screening
with the DrugWipe device.
Surely a very logical solution would be to write
the type approval to accept the current technology, start helping
the police to save some lives, then work with industry to enhance
the specification and performance, whilst continuing to save lives?
6. What further policies, not already widely
used, might be considered for adoption and what evidence there
is for their success?
Evidence? The rest of the countries that realise
the need to reduce deaths and serious injuries from drug driving
have looked at what is available on the market and chosen DrugWipe
as the road side because of its deterrent effect, its credibility
at catching offenders and the ease of use and capability to work
in all environments. In Australia, they have been successful at
catching and prosecuting drug drivers. They stop drivers at random,
screen at the vehicle with a five second saliva sample and five
minute result with the DrugWipe5+. Any positives are taken to
a nearby Booze Bus where a two minute saliva sample is collected
and run through a Cozart device. All positives at this point are
then processed at the laboratory and prosecuted. The Australians
are finding 1 in 50 drivers chosen at random are positive. Shocking.
Even more shocking when you realise they only look for Methamphetamine,
Ecstasy and Cannabis. They are yet to expand to Amphetamine, Cocaine
and Heroin. They are apparently not even considering Methadone
or Benzodiazepines at the moment. The Australians saw there was
a problem and went to try and solve it, even if only in part,
but at least it was a start and it is saving lives. A very different
approach to what we see here in the UK.
With all this anecdotal evidence from the other
countries, why should we believe we do not have a problem with
drug driving here in the UK?
We have advisers and professionals making statements
to the press about "not knowing the size of the problem,
so why should we address it?" The Home Office press department
tells journalists that "we are doing something about drug
driving, we are writing a type approval" is one answer and
the other answer is "we are developing a device to detect
all drugs, illegal, medicinal and over the counter". The
latter, the HOSDB SERS Raman device has been in development for
10 years already, it works on certain substances when prepared
in a laboratory, but is a long way from working on all compounds,
and a long way from being the panacea of a breathalyser size device
for use at the road side.
Inherent in the above statements that work is
being done, there must be some acceptance of the existence of
a drug driving problem, so why then are they not advising that
we should measure the problem?
The 2006-07 British Crime Survey says fewer
cannabis users but more cocaine users. Although the cannabis use
may be slightly less, according to the Forensic Science Service
statement at the end of 2007, that 75% of cannabis seizures were
now the more powerful and more impairing "skunk". Other
studies show the higher users to cover the age groups in question
with this enquiry.
The EU funded study IMMORTAL D-R4.2 (at www.immortal.or.at/deliverables.php)
showed in part of its corrected raw data that more than 15% of
drivers in Glasgow, chosen at random, had taken illegal drugs
in the last 48 hours. One in seven!
MDRS University College Dublin analysed a 1,000
samples taken from the road side and showed the number of drivers
trying to mask the consumption of drugs, by taking a below the
legal limit amount of alcohol so the police officer would suspect
alcohol, test and find it negative for alcohol, so release the
suspect.
There are the reports that show drug driving
exists here in the UK. It appears that they are either hidden
away or not sufficiently or effectively publicised to high light
the drug driving problem, so the priority is not presented to
those people that have the power to make changes.
We have the FSS, when Government owned, stating
in the early 2000s, that the number of drug drivers they were
seeing was 1 in 5.
We have had civil servants ignoring what technology
exists and has been available for more than 10 years like the
immunoassay test devices, but rather look for a "blue sky"
solution that will measure impairment from drink, drugs, medicines
and tiredness. A laudable target, but almost impossible to achieve
in the near future. For a start, any device that measured impairment
would need an individual base line measurements from each and
every driver. Another device, the HOSDB Raman SERS, has been on
the bench of the HOSDB for over 10 years now and is still a good
number of years away.
We can follow other European and Western countries
in screening for the most significant problem drugs and help solve
the majority of the problem now.
DrugWipe5+. It may not be 100% perfect, but
it will detect at the road side, over 90% of the occurrences of
the UK drugs of interest with confidence levels in excess of 95%.
A key fact is that its use will not penalise any innocent people
as it is only a screener. All results will be backed up by a confirmation
sample. DrugWipe5+ is a feasible solution, very credible device
and available immediately. The manufacturer, Securetec Ag, has
become the global market leader in road side screening devices.
Ask any or all the other countries that are road side screening
and selected DrugWipe from the products available world wide.
Introduction of a simple road side screener
will go a significant way to helping save lives and reduce
serious injury. Should people not be thinking, "what can
I do to help solve the part or all of the problem now", rather
than finding reasons why this obvious answer would not be absolutely
perfect?
7. What should be the priorities for government
in considering further targets for casualty reduction beyond 2010?
Sweden has said "one death is too much".
Are we strong enough to accept that challenge?
February 2008
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