NRMA renews calls for a significant boost to random breath testing

The NRMA is renewing calls for a significant boost to random breath testing ahead of National Road Safety Week with a particular focus on regional NSW, where 71 per cent of the state’s 117 road deaths have occurred so far this year.

The NRMA’s calls for a strong focus on road safety come as Australians spend National Road Safety Week honouring the more than 1,200 people killed and 44,000 seriously injured on Australian roads each year.

NRMA patrol vehicles will be displaying yellow ribbons on their vehicles throughout the week from 14 to 21 May.

Across Australia, road trauma is the biggest killer among children under 15 and the second biggest killer of all Australians aged 15-24.

Last year, 36 of the 288 lives lost on NSW roads were in crashes involving alcohol and 26 of these were on regional roads.

NRMA Road Safety Expert Dimitra Vlahomitros said alcohol was one of the leading preventable contributors to crashes on our roads with one in every eight crashes involving alcohol.

“We want to see a downward trend in road deaths and serious injuries in NSW and we need a stronger focus on drink driving and other causal behaviours,” Ms Vlahomitros said.

“We need to continue to crack down on speed, fatigue and all other forms of bad driver behaviour. Police resourcing needs to be enhanced across those areas, especially in regional NSW, where over 70 per cent of deaths occur.

“This includes an immediate increase of RBTs to represent at least 1.1 tests per licence holder each year, or over seven million RBTs each year based on 2021 licence holder figures.

“RBT has been a critical component of combatting drink driving for more than 40 years. While drink driving is no longer socially acceptable in our community, it continues to be a major road safe-ty issue and warrants further enforcement.”