Road safety law changes

Press, 13 October 1982, Page 6

Road safety law changes

PA Wellington The Government hopes to introduce new road safety legislation, possibly incorporating random stopping, before the end of the year. A proposal advocating changes to the law to allow traffic officers to stop drivers at random and breath-test them for suspected drinking-driving is now before Parliament's Road Safety Select Committee. The committee is also looking at possible changes to driver licensing and training. child restraint regulations, and the rehabilitation of drinking drivers. The Minister of Transport. Mr Gair, told an Auckland conference of the Traffic Institute yesterday that he intended introducing legislation covering these issues

after the select committee’s report. He hoped this would be before the end of the Parliamentary session. A spokesman for Mr Gair said it was not certain yet if the random-stopping proposal would be a feature of the planned new law. That, he said, would depend on what the committee thought of it. Mr Gair favours a system by which traffic officers would have the discretion whether to breath-test the driver of a vehicle after they have stopped it. This differs from the randomstopping procedure in the Australian state of Victoria, where traffic police must breath-test the driver if they stop a vehicle thinking the driver has been drinking.