Drug driving is now responsible for more deaths on Australian roads than drink driving. National crash data shows that between 2010 and 2023, fatal crashes involving drugs, including cannabis, methamphetamine, MDMA and cocaine, more than doubled to 16-point-8 percent. At least one of those drugs is being detected in about 1 in 5 motorcycle deaths. Over the same 13-year period, crashes linked to drink driving decreased significantly Continuing a long-term downwards trend. There were ten times more random breath tests last year than roadside drug tests, but a drug test was ten times more likely to yield a positive result. Testing for drugs using a saliva swab is more complicated and more expensive than a breath test but states and territories have been incorporating more of them into their testing regimes.
