Drivers who get a blood test at a roadside police check will have to pay for the cost of the procedure even if they are under the criminal limit, MPs say.
Parliament is considering a law change which will introduce a lower maximum blood-alcohol limit for motorists, with infringement notices of $200 for people who are found driving between the new limit and the old limit. A driver whose breath test showed between 251mcg and 400mcg of alcohol per litre of breath would get an infringement notice, while a person whose result was above 400mcg would still face a criminal charge.
Courts can already order convicted drink-drivers to cover the cost of a blood test, but this power would not extend to people who received infringement notices.
The lower breath-alcohol threshold was expected to lead to an additional 3000 to 4000 roadside blood tests a year, and Government was looking at ways to cover the costs of the police's larger workload.
A select committee has made several amendments to the bill to help with cost recovery. If a driver refused to take a breath test and was then found to be over the infringement limit they would be fined $700. A driver who elected a blood test would have to cover the cost of the procedure - even if the blood test found that they only exceeded the infringement limit. This cost was estimated to be around $300, or an additional $100 on top of the new infringement fee.
