55 drivers arrested for drug driving daily - as transport secretary hints at law change

21 December 2024, 06:35 | Updated: 21 December 2024, 07:04

Fifty-five drivers have been arrested every day for drug driving over the past three years, according to new data unearthed by LBC.

The revelations coincide with the transport secretary telling Nick Ferrari the government is reviewing whether to introduce greater penalties for those caught getting behind the wheel with drugs or alcohol in their system in an attempt to curb the number of deaths on the road.

LBC’s shocking statistics, collated from police forces across England and Wales, show that driving under the influence of drugs is now an even bigger problem for some constabularies than drink-driving.

In Merseyside, for example, twice as many people were arrested for getting behind the wheel whilst having illegal substances in their system than for being over the alcohol limit. In just three years, nearly 7,000 people were arrested for drug-driving across the region over a three-year period, the most of any force that responded to LBC’s inquiries.

Chief Inspector Gavin Dickson, who specialises in road policing for Merseyside Police, suggested that drug detection has become a “go-to skill” for his officers.

“We do more than any other force in England and Wales. We buy more drug detection equipment and train all our officers to detect it… We’re talking about the common drugs: cannabis, cocaine, ketamine - those sorts of drugs,” Dickson says, explaining that there is no leeway in the amount of a substance you can have in your system before it becomes an offence.

“It’s not like drink-driving where you can have one or two and not be over the limit [though] I’m not condoning that… don’t take drugs and drive.”

Earlier this week, the sentencing of nineteen-year-old Thomas Johnson brought the consequences of drug driving into sharp focus. Johnson was jailed for nine years after killing his three teenage friends - Ethan Goddard, Daniel Hancock and Elliot Pullen - whilst inhaling laughing gas in his car.

The grief felt by the victims’ families is all too familiar to Marvin Swale. In June 2023, his twenty-one-year-old daughter, Kate, accepted a lift from her boyfriend, Jamie Hughes, who had taken to the wheel of his grey Vauxhall Corsa with ketamine in his system.

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Kate died after Hughes crashed the car on the M62.

“I was blue-lighted to Whiston Hospital,” Martin recalls, “and there she was - like a little battered budgie in A&E. She was gone. The trauma that follows is something else. It’s just traumatic: the PTSD, the nightmares, the grief.

“No one deserves it - Kate doesn’t deserve it. Everyone tells you [taking ketamine] impairs vision, [causes] dizziness, slows reactions.

“Why do you want to get into a car? Kate didn’t pass away due to an accident. She died due to choice - and the choice was the driver taking ketamine and then driving her in a car on a motorway.”

Hughes pleaded guilty in November to causing Kate's death by dangerous driving, and will be sentenced in January.

Overall, our findings show an average of 20,000 people per year were arrested in England and Wales for drug-driving, more than double the amount just nine years ago, when it became a specific criminal offence.

Drug driving accounted for 1,624 road fatalities last year - a 170% increase in less than a decade.

Meanwhile, drink driving deaths are at their highest in fifteen years.

It is these concerning trends that have led campaigners to call for stiffer sentences for those caught driving under the influence.

Yesterday, transport secretary Heidi Alexander told Nick Ferrari that the government could explore tougher punishments in light of these tragedies.

“It might be time for us to have a look at those,” Ms Alexander said in reference to the current drink and drug driving laws

The transport secretary also stressed the importance of raising awareness that you drivers are “putting innocent individuals in danger if [they] are behaving in a way that is reckless on our roads”.

The government is currently undertaking work to devise a new road safety strategy, the first of its kind in over a decade.