2022 BOCSAR Winter Seminar Series

Session Two - Thursday 21 July, 3:00-4:00pm (AEDT)

Drink & Drug Driving: the effectiveness of strategies to reduce the impact of high-volume traffic offences

The NSW Police Force record over 25,000 drink or drug driving offences each year, substantially contributing to the volume of matters dealt with by the NSW Criminal Justice System. In 2018, Drink and Drug Driving reforms were introduced in NSW to reduce the occurrence of these offences and associated road trauma. The reforms included several changes to NSW’s penalty framework for drink and drug driving offences including a) the introduction of penalty notices for lower range drink and drug driving first offenders; b) the extension of the NSW Mandatory Alcohol Interlock Program (MAIP) to mid-range drink driving first offenders; and c) the option to impose vehicle sanctions for particular high-risk drink driving offences.

This seminar will highlight evidence from the monitoring of these reforms, and recent evaluations of the effectiveness of the NSW Mandatory Alcohol Interlock Program (MAIP), with presentations from:

• Sara Rahman, Research Manager, BOCSAR

• Kirsten Sterling, Senior Evaluation Analyst, Transport for NSW

• Joanne Baker, Senior Research and Policy Analyst, Transport for NSW