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Maximum Penalties for Repeat Drink Driving

28 Sept 2005

The Sentencing Advisory Council is recommending an increase in maximum prison terms faced by repeat drink drivers.

The Council today released a report reviewing the current maximum penalty of three months' imprisonment for repeat drink driving and related offences.

Recommendations include making the maximum penalty for repeat offenders dependant on blood alcohol concentration and the number of prior offences, with recommended maximum prison terms ranging from 6 to 18 months.

Council Chair, Professor Arie Freiberg, said alcohol continues to be one of the main causes of road fatalities in Australia.

"Offenders with a high blood alcohol concentration and offenders with multiple prior offences pose a particular risk to the community. Research shows that offenders with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.15 or more have a crash risk that is 25 times that of someone with no alcohol in their blood."

Prof. Freiberg said Victorian research showed that in 2001 repeat drink driving offenders were responsible for 22 fatalities and 560 serious injuries, with such crashes costing the Victorian community approximately $81 million a year.

"In Victoria between 1988 and 2000 the proportion of repeat drink drivers increased by nine per cent, with more than one in four drink drivers having at least one prior offence since 1992".

The report contains previously unpublished Victorian data on sentencing outcomes for drink driving offences.

Prof. Freiberg said the Council believed the current maximum penalty was insufficient for the most serious cases.

"It is clear that a maximum available sentence of three months' prison does not adequately provide for the very worst cases that sentencers are likely to encounter," he said.

Prof. Freiberg said that the project was initiated following concerns raised with the Council by magistrates.

"Victoria is already one of the toughest jurisdictions in Australia when it comes to ancillary penalties like licence disqualification and alcohol interlocks for drink drivers," he said.

"These additional penalties can impose great hardship on offenders which should be taken into account when looking at the maximum penalty."

Prof. Freiberg said that the Council was supportive of the recently published study by the RACV on the rehabilitation and education of drink drivers.

"While the Council has focussed on the maximum penalty, it recognises that the rehabilitation of drink driving offenders is of paramount importance," he said.

"However the Council considers it important that as part of the overall scheme to address drink driving behaviour, sentencing judges are provided with a maximum penalty that is sufficient to provide for the worst cases and reflect the seriousness of these offences."