Coach drivers must take breath tests

BREATH tests will be obligatory for coach drivers after September 1 as all passenger transport vehicles must be fitted with alcohol-activated immobilisers.

The measure, which comes into force as long-distance coach services start to come into wider operation, is aimed to increase safety for passengers.

Buses and coaches will not start if the driver has a blood/alcohol level above 0.2g per litre of blood – less than half the 0.5g/l legal limit for driving – and the vast majority of coaches are already fitted with the immobilisers.

France’s road death toll rose 3.5% in 2014 and is already 3.8% up since the start of this year and figures continue to show that alcohol is a factor in around one in three accidents.

Earlier this year passengers in Lyon took the keys off a bus driver who was driving through red lights and forgetting to open the doors at bus stops: he was found to be driving with 2.6g/l of alcohol, more than five times the legal limit.

Convicted drink drivers may be ordered by a judge to fit an ethylotest anti-démarrage immobiliser to their private car but there is no sign that the move will be extended to all private drivers although the government has asked installation companies to look at car installation.

The government’s CNSR road safety agency has also recommended studying the possibility of fitting alcohol immobilisers to young drivers’ cars.

Alcohol immobilisers – which cost around €1,000 – have been mandatory in all new buses and coaches transporting children since 2010 and are now mandatory on all passenger vehicles, especially the new long-distance coach services which have been operating since July 1.

However, the measure does not apply to foreign coaches, urban transport and freight transport.