Issued by: SA Communication Service
10 March 1998
The breathalyser has been accepted for the first time in South Africa as evidence in the prosecution of people who drive while exceeding the limit on alcohol.
This follows the publication of specifications by the South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) called the "SABS Standard Specification on Evidentary Breath Testing Equipment" (SABS 1793 of 1998 (First Edition)).
The Minister of Transport Mac Maharaj today welcomed the publication of the specifications.
"This will make an enormous difference to our traffic officials on the roads as they will be able to test people more efficiently and effectively, and know that the evidence they collect will be accepted in court. We will no longer require health workers at the roadblocks as depend on the cumbersome procedure of testing blood, waiting for the results and fearing the possibility of losing evidence in the process and being unable to proceed with cases."
The breathalysers will be deployed from next week.
The CSIR has calibrated the 78 Draeger evidentary breathalysers that the department purchases for the ARRIVE ALIVE campaign, and they are being distributed to the provinces. KwaZulu Natal has also purchased 10 Draegers and the national Department of Transport has 40 more on order.
Minister Maharaj's only regret was that the specifications had not been ready for the ARRIVE ALIVE campaign from October last year to January this year.
"My Department spent over R2 million rand on state-of-the-art breathalysers to be used around the county as part of this campaign. I am sure that if they had been available, ARRIVE ALIVE could have had an even bigger impact on our country and its road users."
During the four months of the ARRIVE ALIVE campaign 8080 people nationwide were arrested for drinking and driving.
"The long process of getting this equipment accepted by the Department of Justice the Attorneys General and all other stakeholders underlies my department's commitment to fighting the problem of the drinking and driving on our roads.
"Alcohol is a huge contributing factor in the unacceptably high fatality rate on our roads and we must arm our traffic officials with the equipment to be able to enforce the law. I am confident that with the new equipment offenders will find themselves in court much quicker than before as the evidentary breathalyser will speed up the rate of prosecution," Minister Mharaj said.
Under current legislation (the Road Traffic Act: Act 29 of 1989) the limits are: breath alcohol: 0,38 milli-gram per 1000 milli-litre of breath.
But new legislation (the National Road Traffic Act: Act 93 of 1996 which will become enforceable next month when the provincial acts have been passed by all nine provinces) will reduce the limits further:
blood alcohol: 0,05 gram per 100 milli-litre of blood
breath alcohol: 0,24 mili-gram per 1000 milli-litre of breath
blood alcohol: 0,02 gram per 100 milli-litre of blood