New figures from a nationwide police campaign have put a number to what roads officers have known for some time. Of the 8,000 motorists tested for drugs during a single month, more than half came back positive. Over the same period, just 11% of the 52,000 breath tests carried out for alcohol produced a positive result. Drug driving in Britain has not just caught up with drink driving. It has overtaken it.

Sky News journalist Greg Milam spent time with the roads policing unit at Cheshire Police, speaking to officers, sitting in on morning briefings, and going out on patrol. What he found was a problem that is growing, and a system that is struggling to keep pace.

“It’s All Times of Day”

The morning briefing at Cheshire Police sets the tone. Officers are handed intelligence on known offenders: a driver in Knutsford suspected of smoking cannabis before work, another in the Macclesfield area known to drive while impaired. Names, vehicles, habits. The list is rarely short.

“There’s people of all walks of life, all ages, all demographics,” one officer explained. “It’s all times of day, lunchtime, early evening, overnight.” Cocaine and cannabis are the substances they encounter most. Some drivers, officers say, openly admit to using cocaine at lunchtime before getting back behind the wheel. They do not think they will be caught. Many are wrong. Within Cheshire alone, around 1,500 people were arrested for the offence in a single year.

Roadside Testing: What Happens at the Stop

Out on patrol, it does not take long. A red Audi is pulled over on intelligence linking it to drug-related activity. The driver is asked directly: does he use cannabis or cocaine? He says yes, cannabis, the night before. He is given a roadside drug wipe test, a saliva swab that can detect both substances within a five-day window, and within minutes he is under arrest. “At this moment in time, you are under arrest for a positive drug wipe,” the officer tells him. “Suspicion of drug driving.”

The driver is taken to the station for a blood test. That is where the problem begins.

The Backlog Keeping Offenders Behind the Wheel

The blood sample taken at the station has to be processed by a laboratory before it carries any weight as evidence in court. That process takes time. Too much of it. The backlog can run from eight weeks to four or five months, and throughout that entire window the person who failed the roadside test is free to drive.

“We’re doing the work to get them off the road now today, but then we’ve got eight weeks, but potentially up to four or five months before we can actually confirm their blood results,” one officer said. “We can’t take them off the road without that.” The result, as officers put it plainly, is that the same people are likely committing the offence again and again while the paperwork catches up.

Sky News has reported previously on cases where drivers who failed roadside tests went on to reoffend while on bail, in some instances fatally. Technology that could resolve the delay already exists, producing results at the roadside that would be immediately usable as evidence. Other countries use it. Britain does not yet.

Who Are Britain’s Drug Drivers?

On a single day at Crewe Magistrates’ Court, ten people were due in the dock for drug driving offences. Among them was a man who had his two young children in the car when he was stopped. He had been driving under the influence of cannabis. He walked away with a suspended prison sentence and a four-year ban.

Others were less willing to engage. “I don’t want to be filmed,” one man said, brushing past the camera moments after pleading guilty. Another offered a brief, defiant exchange before walking away. Several did agree to speak, all asking not to be identified.

One woman described the personal difficulties surrounding her offence, including the recent loss of her long-term partner and ongoing health problems. Whatever the circumstances, the decision to get behind the wheel while impaired put other people in danger. She knew it. “Do you regret it?” she was asked. “Yeah, hugely,” she said.

A self-employed gardener, appearing for the second time on the same charge, was open about his cannabis use but relaxed about the risk it posed. The magistrates were not. He left court with a three-year driving ban that will directly affect his ability to work.

A Crash That Could Have Killed Dozens

Shortly after 6:30 on the morning of April Fools’ Day, a car went through a red light and hit a tractor. Both vehicles ended up inside two residential properties. Photographs of the scene look like something from a warzone. Nobody died. The driver tested positive for cocaine.

His name is Matthew. He spoke to Sky News after pleading guilty to drug and dangerous driving. He had been to a funeral the Friday before, he explained. The weekend spiralled. By Tuesday morning he was behind the wheel with cocaine still in his system, and he knew it.

“So where the tractor went through, another hour later, there’s an actual bus where school kids queue up. So it could have been like 20 fatalities,” he said. “How would you ever live with that? You wouldn’t, would you?”

The houses have been rebuilt. Matthew now runs counselling sessions for men trying to break similar patterns of behaviour. His message to anyone who thinks cocaine and driving can coexist is simple: “They’re thinking, ‘Oh, I’m not drink driving. I’ve had a line of coke. I’ve gone out.’ But it is. Look at me for it. It’s cocaine. It’s an epidemic out there.”

The Scale of a Problem That Is Not Going Away

The ratio speaks for itself. Drug driving positive test rates in the nationwide campaign were nearly five times higher than those for alcohol. Thousands of arrests are made each year, but delays in the system mean many of those drivers stay on the roads for months after being caught.

The Department for Transport confirmed that the government’s road safety strategy includes plans for tougher and faster consequences for offenders. Officers on the ground are still waiting for those changes to arrive. In the meantime, they keep stopping drivers, taking blood samples, and watching them drive away.

Getting behind the wheel while under the influence of drugs is not a grey area, regardless of how routine it may feel or how many times someone has done it without incident. It is a choice that puts other people’s lives at risk. The statistics, and the wreckage on April Fools’ Day, are proof enough of where that choice can lead.

Source: dbrecoveryresources