The announcement unveiled in the Queen’s Speech that new legislation will create a specific drug driving offence has brought a response from the IAM, the UK’s largest road safety organisation.

IAM chief executive Simon Best said: “While we support the introduction of the drugalyser test and this offence, it needs to be backed up by some measure of impairment. Without this, the test could simply catch those people who have used drugs at some point, but are not necessarily still impaired by them.

“Impairment as the key factor is also essential in tackling drivers who may have used over the counter or prescription drugs which, while legal, can have an equal impact on driving ability as illegal ones.”

Around 750,000 people have driven under the influence of cannabis and 370,000 have driven under the influence of class A drugs¹ .

One in ten young male drivers has driven under the influence of cannabis¹ according to the IAM.

¹Figures calculated from THINK! Road Safety Annual Survey and DVLA licensing statistics by age obtained through a freedom of information request. http://assets.dft.gov.uk/publications/think-research/think-annual-report-2010.pdf

These percentages have remained constant over the last five years of Think! Surveys. For some years a slightly higher proportion of drivers have admitted to driving under the influence of Class A drugs (2 per cent was reported in 2006 and 2009).

Survey respondent numbers Nov ‘06 (1,462 respondents), Nov ‘07 (1,258 respondents), Oct ‘08 (1,219 respondents), Nov ‘09 (1,229 respondents), Feb ’11 (1,369 respondents).