If it quacks like a Duck - do a drug test

In response to the latest case of drug driving which the legal system has turned a careless blind eye to, Candor Trust say the need for a dose of reality in Policing and the Courts puts children at risk.

In 2005, 11 of the 31 child deaths on our roads were due to drugged or drunk drivers, and it is definitely the system putting them on the chopping block.

"Police continue calling DUI drug ducks, careless or dangerous driving ducks -
They appear inept, lax or gullible, and quite willing to excuse serious child abuse," say frustrated Candor members.

Methadone addled driver Sandra Christine Allan, 35, of Runanga was yesterday disqualified from driving for six months and sixty hours community service when she was convicted of dangerous driving not DUI (driving under influence) in Greymouth's District Court.

In January, Allan's car veered across the road and struck a boat-trailer being hauled by a car heading in the opposite direction, after other motorists had forced her off the road briefly to remove her endangered distraught child.

When Police arrived Allan had admitted being under the influence of methadone. Statistics suggest this was only a partial truth as regular methadone users are not normally ill affected - only when it is cocktailed with other drugs or injected.

Some patients who receive "takeaway" doses will inject it to get a bigger bang, the local manufacturer makes an injectable form in cognisance of this form of abuse.

Her car was crossing the centre line then returning to the correct side to avoid head-on collisions, crossing the road on bends, and fluctuating in speed.

The Judge reprimanded Allan for endangering other road users and her own daughter. However this was quite useless when the obvious cause (drugs) was skirted.

He failed to reprimand the Police for neglecting to gather sufficient evidence, in the form of blood samples or checks for needle marks so that they could look at bringing more correct charges per all probability.

Abused opiates (methadone is a synthetic version) put users at 32 x the normal crash risk (Immortal study), making them the most dangerous drug on road aside from alcohol which gives 16 x normal risk at the limit

When methadone is mixed with other drugs the risk rises to 179 x (Immortal).

Substituting non representative "dangerous driving" charges for the likely correct charge of driving under the influence means that Ms Allan may be slower to chalk up 3 DUI charges.

The number required before an alcohol and drug assessment can be considered by the Court. It also reduces her culpability and sentence in the event she later kills some-one, like several other NZ methadone patients here have lately.

Of particular concern is that the World Health Organisations Child Traffic Safety Report places us in the worst four countries for child road injuries, and this is largely to do with rampant drink and drug driving.

Under four year olds are specially vulnerable as car seats normally reduce risk of death in a crash by 54% but where drugs or alcohol are involved (producing more serious crashes) the death rate is only reduced by 15%.

Children deserve designated drivers regardless of the circumstances of their birth.

They must not have the circumstances of their neglect and abuse as passengers tarted up by defense lawyer excuses, and minimised by the judiciary via non acknowledgement.

DUI is DUI - nothing else, it is time for the Police and the judiciary to stop this very British humming and haahing and outright refusal to call a spade a spade.

The legality of methadone use is of no import as Coroner Evans has stated in relation to drug driving. Alcohol is legal but you still need to act responsibly.

Ms Allen's denial of her need to address her behaviour will not be aided much by a charge sheet which can only be said to support and prop it up.

Unfortunately hair raising experiences at the hands of druggy parents are all too common in NZ, CYPFs and methadone services are up to their necks in it.

Candor have photos of NZ car wrecks some methadone kids have survived - kiddy car seats litter state highway one and two. No-one is there for the occupants other than Angels - and then only sometimes. The Courts yesterday let all kids down.

"Lets have some truth in charging please - children can't be safe till that happens".
Thirty percent of road toll children dying due to drug or drink drivers, is we believe unprecedented in a first world setting.

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