Drink-driving limit on skippers in Australia’s Northern Territory

The Northern Territory (NT) government in Australia confirmed yesterday that, as a result of its comprehensive review of its current alcohol policy, it would impose a blood alcohol limit of 0.05 on boat skippers. The limit is the same as the restriction on the divers of vehicles on NT’s roads.

Currently, NT is the only jurisdiction in the country that does not have a drinking limit on boat skippers. Chief Minister, Michael Gunner, has called the NT’s boating safety record “the worst in the country.”

Gunner said that the intent of new regulations was to make the territory safer. He said, “Royal Life Saving have actually shown that we have got the worst water safety rates in the country around this and obviously there’s plenty of research and evidence that shows if you have a 0.05 [blood alcohol reading] you aren’t safe behind the wheel or behind the tiller.”

Floss Roberts, the executive director of the Royal Life Saving Northern Territory, said that the NT has reported the country’s biggest drowning rate per capita. She said her organisation supported the regulations, and that they were “long overdue.” She said at least ten people had died in powerboat accidents in the past 15 years and that 40% of those deaths were related to alcohol consumption.

A report published in Prehospital and Disaster Medicine in 2017 found that alcohol consumption was a contributing factor in 52% of the 95 water-related deaths in the NT from 2005 to 2014.