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As Christmas approaches and the road toll becomes the daily headline-grabber, finally something that’s been chronically overdue, takes one, albeit slow, step forward.

Roadside saliva-testing to curb the scourge of drug-driving.

Police stats indicate ninety five people were killed last year by drugged drivers. Cannabis and meth led the way, but prescription meds are in the mix too.

And unlike so many overseas jurisdictions, we have continued to drag the chain, despite the pleading from the Police Association, the AA….you name it, to get with the programme.

We are so many years behind the UK, the US, Canada and Australia in taking the fight to the menace of drug users getting behind the wheel. Neither major party has covered themselves in glory on this issue. They’ve each taken turns of hounding the other over their respective inaction – and taking pot shots.

We absolutely need this to help bend the arc on the carnage count.

Currently, if a cop has reason to suspect a driver is drug-affected, they can perform an “archaic” impairment field test, like something out of the nineteen fifties. They can gaze into their eyes, direct them to walk and turn and stand on one leg. What a joke.

The Greens haven’t exactly rushed to embrace drug-driving saliva-testing. Much of their party base will resent this. My hunch is that Julie-Anne Genter and co have calculated that backing this testing regime may help allay some voters’ fears about legalising recreational dope. Their eyes are on the bigger prize.

But that’s a red herring. Legalisation would surely only make the incidence of drug-driving an ever bigger menace, when it’s already a menace, which is why this testing regime can’t come soon enough.

And that’s the big disappointment about this announcement. Stuart Nash raised my hopes yesterday that real action was pending. But it will be at least a year before the law passes through parliament to make this regime a reality. This testing regime won’t see the light of day until 2021! It’s another case of go-slow, delay and deferral in the much-junked and illusory Year of Delivery.

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