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BBC Radio 5 Live

5 live Investigates

5 Live Investigates

Factual: Consumer

Adrian Goldberg presents cutting edge investigative journalism

Adrian Goldberg presents cutting edge investigative journalism, as well as taking on listeners' campaigns and consumer issues

5 Live Investigates: Drug Driving

12/12/2010

Drug Driving

BBC Radio 5 Live - 5 Live Investigates, Drug Driving

Drug driving - is the Home Office slow to act on a lethal problem?

Drug drivers know that the chances of being caught and convicted are low, say MPs. Why, after 10 years, has the Home Office still failed to introduce a roadside drugs test?

Adrian Goldberg presents cutting edge investigative journalism, as well as taking on listeners' campaigns and consumer issues.

Drug drivers know that the chances that they'll be brought to book are low, say MPs.

Why - after 10 years - has the Home Office still failed to introduce a roadside drugs test to tackle what's recognised as a lethal problem?

In many other European countries, the police have small hand held screening kits. In Germany last year, they led to 34,500 drivers losing their licence.

Figures for the UK - and for the previous year - reveal that only 168 drug driving guilty verdicts were recorded by the courts.

Without a hand held test, UK police have to look for the tell-tale signs in the driver's general demeanour.

In a damning assessment of the situation, MPs on the Transport Select Committee say: "At the moment, people assume - quite correctly - that they can take drugs and drive a vehicle with little chance of being caught."

Also on the programme - Adrian asks why the UK food industry is doing so badly in controlling a bug that contaminates the outside of chickens and causes potentially-fatal food poisoning.

More than 8 in 10 chickens are infected with campylobacter, which lives on the outside of the bird, and get on your hands or the work surface. 

The Food standards Agency is now putting pressure on supermarkets to improve conditions in the supply chain - they have been given 12 months. 

Adrian asks the British Retail Consortium why we have worse record than Romania.

How safe are you and your computer after you've signed up to 'Operation Pay Back', the campaign to exact revenge on companies who've abandoned WikiLeaks?

It's illegal, but will there be prosecutions? Your computer will have to be dis-infected otherwise it could be used for other campaigns you might not support.

And Christmas crackers - why has the Government ruled that children under 16 can't buy a box of crackers to go with the turkey dinner?

To contact the programme, email goldberg@bbc.co.uk - or send comments via Twitter to @5LInvestigates.

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