Alcohol and drug-driving offences soar in Geraldton for 2020

A staggering surge in the number of alcohol and drug-affected drivers caught red-handed in Geraldton was recorded in 2020. But police say the COVID effect of having more people travelling within WA has skewed the figures. In 2020, 115 people were charged by Geraldton police for drink-driving, which equates to a huge 134.5 per cent jump from the 49 people caught the previous year. Similarly, police saw the number of drug-affected drivers rise by more than a third from 93 in 2019 to 125 for 2020 in the Geraldton region. In Geraldton, police nabbed more drug-affected drivers, than drink-drivers, but in the wider Mid West Gascoyne, it was the other way around. In the broader district, there was a 28 per cent increase in drink-driving charges (227 in 2019 to 291 in 2020) and a 17.5 per cent rise in drug-driving offences (166 in 2019 to 195 in 2020). More than half of the 473 impaired-driving offences across the region in 2020 were recorded in Geraldton. The drug-related figures are the number of secondary kits used after a driver has provided a positive result to a preliminary roadside test. Mid West Gascoyne District Traffic Sgt Drue Pardoe said he believed these numbers might have been artificially inflated during 2020 because more people were travelling within WA during the COVID-19 hard border closure. “It’s not a true comparison to last year as COVID-19 has greatly affected the number of vehicles on our roads,” he said. But Mid West Gascoyne District Supt Roger Beer labelled the results “disappointing” and said by 2020 he “thought the road safety message would have gotten through”. “It seems people aren’t getting the message that impaired driving contributes to road deaths,” he said. “Police are out trying to prevent people from getting hurt.” To yesterday, 12 people had been killed on Mid West and Gascoyne roads in 2020 compared with eight road deaths in the region in 2019. According to Road Safety Commission data from 2019, a fifth of the 163 people killed on WA roads last year involved alcohol-related crashes.