The Moroccan General Directorate for National Security (DSGN) will launch new alcohol breath-testing equipment after the end of Ramadan next week.
Policeman will use two new types of breathalyzers to calculate drivers’ blood alcohol levels through a two-stage process. The first breathalyzer will test whether the driver has had any alcohol. If the reading is positive, the second breathalyzer will then be used to calculate the blood alcohol content, and whether or not it exceeds legal levels in Morocco (0.1mg/L).
Morocco introduced blood-alcohol testing in 2004, but it wasn’t until 2016 that it was officially carried out by police on a national scale.
According to the ex-Deputy Minister for Transport, Najib Boulif, the period from 2014 to 2016 was only meant to “familiarize drivers with blood-alcohol testing,” meaning that the anti-drunk driving campaign in Morocco didn’t truly begin until late 2016.
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The new two-stage testing technology coming to the roads next week will contribute to decreasing accidents and road deaths, a key concern for Moroccan authorities.
3,485 people died on the roads last year, a slight drop from 2017 figures.
In 2017, the Ministry for Transport launched a national strategy to halve the number of deaths on the roads by 2026. At first, the Ministry hopes to reduce the number of deaths to 3000 per year by 2020.
