Breath test lottery

Thursday, 26 May 2005 12:00 AM

New figures from the Home Office reveal a wide variation in the number of breath tests carried out in England and Wales.

Some police forces carried out up to nine times more tests than others in 2003, with figures ranging from 390 per 100,000 of the population in Hertfordshire to 3,390 per 100,000 in Derbyshire.

Success rates also varied widely, with Hertfordshire police reporting that 52 per cent of their tests returned positive or were refused and Derbyshire reporting just five per cent.

Police forces in Hampshire, north Wales and Derbyshire conducted the most breathalyser tests, while south Wales, Gloucestershire, Thames Valley and Greater Manchester constabularies registered the highest rate of positive and refused tests.

Overall, there was a six per cent drop in the number of breath tests across England and Wales to 534,000, of which 106,000 were either positive or refused, an annual improvement of three per cent.

Meanwhile, a survey funded by the European Commission revealed that motorists now face less risk of being breathalysed in Britain than in almost any other European country.

This study reveals that a mere nine per cent of drivers in the UK have been tested since 2002 compared to 64 per cent in Finland, 63 per cent in the Netherlands and 33 per cent in France. The EU average is 26 per cent.

Mary Williams, chief executive of road safety charity Brake, told the Times: "Ministers must ensure that the existing law is properly enforced by getting tough with police forces which fail to conform to guidelines on breath-testing.

"The root cause of the regional variation in testing is that road policing is not a national policing priority. While it remains so low on the agenda, police simply won't bother, which is clearly the case in Hertfordshire."

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