Alcohol Test Success – Australia, Ireland, Canada?

You may associate random drug testing with schools and employment, but a few English speaking countries have begun random alcohol test campaigns – and they appear to be working. Canada is reportedly the next country to consider this.

How are these different from sobriety checkpoints, used in the United States to check car by car regardless of suspicion for alcohol abuse? Well, unlike setting up a roadblock for a limited amount of time, which is legal in the United States, random alcohol testing gives police officers the authority to pull over any driver, on any road, at any time, and conduct a breath test – regardless of whether the driver seems impaired.

According to the Center for Disease Control, US sobriety checkpoints typically reduce alcohol-related crashes by 20%. But Australia and Ireland have found that a random roadside alcohol test policy resulted in 36% and 23% drops in fatal DUI crashes. This is why Canada is considering implementing its own random roadside law.

In Canada, this is a very high-level and sophisticated debate. Mothers Against Drunk Driving have produced a paper detailing the benefits of random alcohol testing and demonstrating that it is actually law in many European countries. Debate centers around whether such a law would violate Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, similar to the US Bill of Rights.

What might this mean for American citizens? Well, alcohol testing has already been through the Supreme Court – sobriety checkpoints have, at least. In Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz (1990) the Supreme Court found by a decision of 6-3 that properly conducted sobriety checkpoints/roadblocks are indeed constitutional.

But an alcohol test conducted without suspicion at any time on the road? This is not something the US has quite dealt with, yet. The fact that our neighbors from the North are suggests it may be in our future though.

If you would like to alcohol test yourself or others, affordable, accurate and disposable options exist. You can purchase such a home drug test from Home Health Testing today.