Two traffic officers accredited as Drug Recognition Expert
The Road Traffic (Amendment) Ordinance 2011, which came into effect on March 15, provides police with the necessary enforcement powers to combat drug driving by requiring a driver suspected of consuming drugs to undergo a preliminary drug test and, as appropriate, to obtain specimens of blood and urine for laboratory tests.
To effectively enforce provisions of the ordinance, Traffic Branch has worked in collaboration with the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) of England and Wales to accredit Hong Kong police officers as Impairment Testing Instructor (ITI). At present, there are 44 officers accredited as ITI, 142 officers qualified as Impairment Testing Operator, and 271 officers trained as Drug Influence Recognition Observation Operator. Impairment tests have been very effective in identifying drug drivers and have achieved a 100 per cent accuracy rate.
In a bid to further enhance officers’ professionalism in combatting drug driving, Traffic Branch Senior Inspector (SIP) Choi Wing-yuk and Sergeant (SGT) Ko Chun-ming of Traffic Hong Kong Island attended an advanced drug recognition training course in the USA in January and were recently accredited as Drug Recognition Experts (DRE) after going through a rigorous accreditation process by the International Association of Chiefs of Police.
"The course is demanding yet very fruitful, and I am proud of being the first Asian woman police officer to get this expert qualification," said SIP Choi.
"The course offered us a good opportunity to put our drug recognition training into practice during the DRE field certification examination," SGT Ko added.
Chief Superintendent (Traffic) Steve Verralls commented that the expert status of the officers would further boost the Force’s credibility in combatting drug driving through the impairment test regime.
SIP Choi and SGT Ko
complete a drug recognition training course in USA