South Australian Consolidated Acts South Australian Consolidated Acts (1) Where a motor
vehicle is involved in any accident and, within eight hours after the
accident, a person apparently of or above the age of 10 years who suffered
injury in the accident attends at, or is admitted into, a hospital for the
purpose of receiving treatment for that injury, it is, subject to this section
and Schedule 1, the duty of the legally qualified medical practitioner by whom
that patient is attended to take, as soon as practicable, a sample of that
patient's blood (notwithstanding that the patient may be unconscious) in
accordance with this section.
(4) Where a motor
vehicle is involved in any accident and a person apparently of or above the
age of 10 years who suffered injury in the accident is dead on arrival at the
hospital, or dies before a sample of blood has been taken in accordance with
this section and within eight hours after admission to the hospital, it is the
duty of the medical practitioner who, pursuant to Part 5 of the Coroners
Act 2003 , notifies the State Coroner or a police officer of the
death—
(a) to
take a sample of blood from the body of the deceased in accordance with this
section; or
(b) to
notify the State Coroner as soon as practicable that, in view of the
circumstances in which the death of the deceased occurred, a sample of blood
should be taken from the body under this section.
(5) The State Coroner,
on receiving a notification under subsection (4), may authorise and
direct a pathologist to take a sample of blood from the body of the deceased
in accordance with this section.
(6) A medical
practitioner is not obliged to take a sample of blood under this section where
a sample of blood has been taken in accordance with this section by any other
medical practitioner.
(14) Any person who,
on being requested to submit to the taking of a sample of blood under this
section, refuses or fails to comply with that request and who—
(a)
fails to assign any reason based on genuine medical grounds for that refusal
or failure; or
(b)
assigns a reason for that refusal or failure that is false or misleading; or
(c)
makes any other false or misleading statement in response to the request,
is guilty of an offence.
Penalty:
(a)
where the convicted person was the driver of a motor vehicle involved in the
accident—
(i)
for a first offence—a fine of not less than
$1 100 and not more than $1 600;
(ii)
for a subsequent offence—a fine of not less than
$1 900 and not more than $2 900;
(b) in
any other case—$500.
(14a) Where a court
convicts a person of an offence against subsection (14) in which the
person was the driver of a motor vehicle involved in the accident, the
following provisions apply:
(a) the
court must order that the person be disqualified from holding or obtaining a
driver's licence—
(i)
in the case of a first offence—for such period,
being not less than twelve months, as the court thinks fit; or
(ii)
in the case of a subsequent offence—for such
period, being not less than three years, as the court thinks fit;
(b) the
disqualification prescribed by paragraph (a) cannot be reduced or
mitigated in any way or be substituted by any other penalty or sentence
unless, in the case of a first offence, the court is satisfied, by evidence
given on oath, that the offence is trifling, in which case the court may order
a period of disqualification that is less than the prescribed minimum period
but not less than one month;
(d) if
the person is the holder of a driver's licence—the disqualification
operates to cancel the licence as from the commencement of the period of
disqualification;
(e) the
court may, if it thinks fit to do so, order that conditions imposed by section
81A or 81AB of the Motor Vehicles Act 1959 on any driver's licence issued
to the person after the period of disqualification be effective for a period
greater than the period prescribed by that section.
(14b) In determining
whether an offence is a first or subsequent offence for the purposes of this
section, any previous drink driving offence or drug driving offence for which
the defendant has been convicted will be taken into account, but only if the
previous offence was committed within the prescribed period immediately
preceding the date on which the offence under consideration was committed.
(19) In this
section—
"hospital" means any institution at which medical care or attention is
provided for injured persons, declared by regulation to be a hospital for the
purposes of this section.