Dangerous act 1 in 10 drivers admit to

More than one-in-10 drivers admitted to driving while over the legal blood-alcohol limit, as the drink-driving crash death toll climbed to 35 in NSW.

The alarming data emerged in the NRMA’s new Bust the Boozers report into drink driving released on Wednesday.

The report revealed that 12 per cent of people who drink alcohol had driven while over the limit, while an additional 17 per cent believed they were possibly over the limit when they got behind the wheel.

Of those who admitted to drink driving, 14 per cent had previously been caught by an RBT.

This made sense given that less than half of those surveyed had even seen an RBT in the last six months.

NRMA spokesman Peter Khoury said with the NSW road toll 24 per cent higher than last year, a radical shift is needed to crack down on drunk drivers.

“It is abhorrent that in 2023 we are still having to tell people to stop drink driving,” Mr Khoury said.

“With almost one-in-five road deaths related to alcohol, it’s clear we have so much work to do and the tip of the spear remains the booze bus and RBTs.”

The NRMA has launched a petition to the NSW parliament calling for an increase in RBTs to at least 1.1 tests per licence holder each year, in line with Austroads best practice model.

This would equates to over 7.3 million tests across NSW – almost double the amount conducted in 2022.

“Increasing the number of RBTs on our roads is the ultimate deterrent,” Mr Khoury said.

“The more drivers see them set up on the side of the road testing drivers the more likely they are to not risk drink driving.”

The NSW Government spent $42 million on speed and mobile phone cameras in the 2021 financial year.