Surrey Police: "Drug driving is definitely on the rise"

Surrey police have been telling us about how they are noticing drug driving becoming more and more of a common problem.

Last year, Surrey police did 8847 vehicle stop checks. They arrested 196 people and out of that 140 were for drug driving and 84 for drink driving.

Earlier this month Surrey police launched their annual crackdown on drink and drug driving called Operation Limit

Officers are carrying out "targeted police enforcement" to tackle dangerous driving on the county's roads until 31 December.

Sargent Mark Blackwell says he has seen drug driving becoming more and more common over his time as an officer

"I've been policing for nearly 25 years and certainly Drink driving was something that was always quite high.

That seems to have come down slightly and drug driving is is definitely on the rise. I think that's potentially because people don't think it's a problem or it's perhaps more socially acceptable"

Mark Blackwell voiced his concerns that people were not taking the issue as seriously as they should be

"People don't understand that actually having those things in your body is is just the same as drink driving and and the penalties are the same as well.

Drugs and drink affect people in different ways and and ultimately it does end up to people being killed or seriously injured on the roads. That's something we want to prevent."

Blackwell added that there was a specific drug that over the last few years, there has been more and more reports

Specifically, people using balloons to inhale laughing gas while behind the wheel.

"We'll get many, many reports of someone saying there's someone going down the motorway and they're like doing balloons their driving's all over the place, it's very dangerous.

Blackwell says people don't see drug and drink driving as being the same thing when in reality they are

"They don't see it as a problem. I think if you put a bottle of whiskey in hand, they'd be like, Oh my God, that's really bad. I'm properly drink driving.

But they then think that in comparison, drugs are OK and old balloons are fine, but it's just not."

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