Weeding out drivers on the high-way

A year ago the law gave police greater powers to act against drivers under the influence of drugs. KEN BENNETT reports on his night on patrol with GMP’s frontline team.

IT’S Friday evening and under the bright lights of the police custody suite I’m watching a man walking the line . . .

He hunches purposefully over the yellow strip of tape pasted to the floor and launches on a toe to heel journey monitored by three police officers and an ever-watchful video camera.

At first, the ritual seems slightly bizarre until you examine the chilling circumstances that brought this leather-coated driver into police custody.

Just two hours earlier, the same man had been behind the wheel of a car driving towards one of Manchester’s busiest roads.

He had no driving licence, no insurance, no road tax and remarkably, no number plates on the vehicle which was pulled over just short of entering a main thoroughfare in rush-hour traffic flow.

And when he was breathalysed at the scene by the two uniformed policemen who had chronicled his journey he tested negative.

But now he’s under the judicial gaze of PC Danny Moorhouse, a specially- trained traffic officer specialising in drug detection.

I had joined him on night patrol with GMP’s traffic squad tackling the menace of drug-taking drivers who, until a year ago, could slip under the radar.

Up to December, under the new legislation which came in last March, local police have arrested 365 suspected drug drivers with 240 testing positive. The legislation set limits for 17 legal and illegal drugs and made it easier for officers to detect drug drivers.

And the new kit we are carrying in our high-speed unmarked patrol car enables PC Moorhouse and other expert officers to test motorists at the roadside for cannabis and cocaine by using a saliva sample.

The portable machine remained in its bag because the accused man was already in the police station.

PC Moorhouse said: “The new laws make very clear distinctions under the Road Traffic Act.

“Motorists now realise drink-driving is not acceptable and they must not think for one minute that driving and taking drugs, class A or otherwise, is an option. It isn’t.

“Our new machine works like a breathalyser,” he explained, “It takes a saliva sample and can test for traces of cocaine or cannabis in seven minutes. People would then be taken to the station for a blood test if they test positive.”

Back on the road on the outskirts of Oldham, we are shadowing an estate car. Danny signals the driver to stop, and joins him at the roadside.

“I can smell cannabis,” he tells the driver, who claims a relative had been smoking it. A saliva test proves negative and the driver is allowed to go.

Later, the equipment and electronic links to the force control unit allow PC Moorhouse to have a building worker’s car impounded, put on a trailer and taken away over insurance issues.

Insp Susan Redfern of the Road Policing Unit, said: “Officers are more equipped than ever to catch drug-drivers, We prosecuted more people than ever last year. Tackling this type of crime remains a priority for police but we also need the public to help us, by taking greater responsibility for their behaviour and challenging others.”

I agree with her and head home into the dawn for a very strong drink... of tea.