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Speaker 1: Right now, six million dollars of police funding is on

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Speaker 1: hold because they didn't quite meet all of their new

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Speaker 1: infringement targets. You'll remember that some police funding is now

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Speaker 1: dependent on doing a certain number of roadside drug tests

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Speaker 1: and issuing a certain number of speeding tickets. Well, in

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Speaker 1: the July September quarter police met all of their targets

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Speaker 1: except one. They didn't issue enough speeding tickets on open roads.

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Speaker 1: Dylan Thompson is the road safety spokesperson at AA. He's

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Speaker 1: with us now, Dylan, good evening, Good afternoon, How are

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Speaker 1: you doing right?

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Speaker 2: Good? Thank you.

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Speaker 1: Does this mean that we just weren't speeding.

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Speaker 2: Well, that's a really hard question to answer, actually, because

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Speaker 2: nobody knows exactly what's going on on the roads everywhere,

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Speaker 2: all at once. Unlikely. So I think what it's just

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Speaker 2: meant is that the police probably didn't manage to spend

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Speaker 2: as much time in forcing out on the open roads

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Speaker 2: as they would have been aiming to.

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Speaker 1: Police have caught flak in the past for not doing

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Speaker 1: enough breath tests, So the fact that they've met the

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Speaker 1: breath test and the drug test target they should be

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Speaker 1: commended for.

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Speaker 2: Well, it's just the alcohol tests at the moment. We're

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Speaker 2: still waiting to introduce roadside drug testing next year. But

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Speaker 2: they not only hit the target for alcohol tests in

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Speaker 2: this quarter, but way exceeded it, and we're so pleased

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Speaker 2: to see that. So that is really good news. And

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Speaker 2: really this is just part of a huge push from

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Speaker 2: the government here to increase the amount of enforcement around

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Speaker 2: alcohol and drugs ultimately and speeding. They're really focused on that.

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Speaker 1: Which is good. I've noticed a lot in the central city.

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Speaker 1: I've noticed a lot of breathalyzer tests happening. I'm wondering,

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Speaker 1: and I noticed that these tickets that they're not doing

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Speaker 1: are on the open road. Are they taking the easy

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Speaker 1: option and doing breathalyzer tests and perhaps catching speed is

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Speaker 1: close to the cities rather than going out into the

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Speaker 1: regions and doing the hard stuff on the alcohol tests.

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Speaker 2: You know, part of that target is they've got their

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Speaker 2: total number of tests and then they've also got a

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Speaker 2: certain number at what they have defined as high and

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Speaker 2: extreme alcohol risk hours. So I think they are trying

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Speaker 2: to target it. But you're always going to be able

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Speaker 2: to test more people quickly in our big urban centers

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Speaker 2: than out in the regions. And I mean, I think

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Speaker 2: we've got to get that mix right. And that's part

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Speaker 2: of the reason, I guess for the focus on the

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Speaker 2: open road enforcement of speeding, because those are the roads

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Speaker 2: that we tend to have higher rates of fatal crashes

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Speaker 2: and some of those really horrific crashes out there. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Interesting. Thank you so much for that, Dylan. Great to

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Speaker 1: have you on the show. As always, Ylan Thompson the

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Speaker 1: road safety spokesperson for AA. For more from Heather Duplessy

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Speaker 1: Allen Drive, listen live to news talks. It'd be from

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Speaker 1: four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.