Byron Bay is an idyllic beach town. Just don’t mention the high rates of drink-driving

November 8, 2026 — 1:30pm

Angus Farand found himself in the back of a car hitting 140km/h on Byron Bay’s Pacific Motorway, a drunk driver at the wheel. He thought he was going to die.

Minutes earlier, the group’s designated driver had said she was too intoxicated to drive. Another volunteered, but everyone was “too pissed” to notice she was also drunk.

The car – with five occupants plus one in the boot – finally veered off the highway, only to start spinning out of control.

“I was gripping the roof and just like looking down the barrel, thinking, ‘Shit, this could be it’,” Farand, now 24, says. “We smacked into some trees … I am so, so grateful to say that no one lost their lives, no one was gravely injured.”

A policewoman later told Farand, then aged 20, that she’d recently attended a similar crash. “There were multiple dead people – teenagers – wrapped around trees,” she told him.

Two decades ago, four teenage boys were killed in a crash on nearby Broken Head Road, leading to provisional licence changes restricting the number of under-age passengers in a car.

“These are situations you hear about. How the hell have I found myself in this?” Farand says.

“Then there I was, and I think to this day, that is a terrifying situation. But, in an odd way, I’m grateful to have had it because now I really, really [need to] know … that the people you’re getting in a car with and trusting your life with are not drink-driving.”

Byron tops state’s drink-driving rates

The Northern Rivers town recorded the state’s fourth-highest drink-driving rates in the year to June, at 727.1 offences per 100,000 people, or four times the NSW average of 181. The region’s offence rate is falling and is now at a 10-year low.

Top 5 NSW LGAs for drink-driving offence rates per capita in 2025–2026 (per 100,000 people)

1. Bogan: 955.4
2. Coonamble: 775.0
3. Lachlan: 736.2
4. Byron: 727.1
5. Bourke: 681.1

According to Farand and Byron Shire Mayor Sarah Ndiaye, the rate can be directly attributed to one issue – lack of transport.

The vibrant shire, famous as a haven for budding artists and creatives, is centred on Byron Bay but has dozens of surrounding towns, including such hubs as Ocean Shores, Mullumbimby, Brunswick Heads and Bangalow.

Each is about 20 kilometres from the next. Scant shuttle services mean locals can barely navigate around the bus timetable during daylight hours, let alone at night, Ndiaye says.

“I have chosen to rent a room in town at substantial expense to attend events in case I have more than one drink,” Ndiaye said.

For the Easter weekend, the council secured funding to provide free bus services throughout the shire.

“We only had 48 hours to let people know that that was going to be happening, and we had well over 1000 people use them,” Ndiaye said.

“A $5 bus fare in and out is manageable, but a $50 each-way trip [using Uber] isn’t – particularly in a cost-of-living crisis.”

Following questions from the Herald, Minister for Regional Transport Jenny Aitchison said the government was scheduling more than 670 extra weekly bus services in the region, starting December 6. Earlier this year, it added 175 weekly bus services in the Tweed and Murwillumbah areas.

Hitchhiking and stranded at night

When Serren Glenn was 17, she took the school bus to visit a friend’s house – but without phone reception, she couldn’t figure out how to get there. She arrived at 4am after walking for eight hours along a highway and long stretches of road.

”I had to knock on the door, wake him up, and then ask him if I could charge my phone to call my mum,” the now 29-year-old recalls.

Glenn believes youth in Byron still face the same issue, but Uber has helped mitigate problems.

After 15-year-old Freya Marshall Rosoto visited a friend about 40 minutes from her Mullumbimby home, she flagged down a bus – but it did not stop. The next one was due in three hours.

An older man sat next to her and started speaking to her. She was alone. “It was a friendly encounter … but I was a little bit scared, being trapped for several hours,” Freya says. “I hassled a family member to pick me up – I was lucky to have someone to rely on to do that.”

When Freya’s brother, Finn, was 16 and at college in a town about 50 kilometres away, he secretly began hitchhiking home to avoid waiting four hours for a bus.

“He was a child, getting into cars with strangers every day,” his mother, Lally Marshall, tells the Herald. “I felt physically sick.”

These days Lally and her husband wait in Byron town until 2am most weekends to bring Finn, now 19, home safely. “We cannot risk him hitchhiking or him getting stuck and getting in a car with somebody [who has been drinking],” Lally says.

“We have made an executive decision in an attempt to keep our child alive because of the devastating number of accidents that have happened.”

Byron’s police District Inspector Matt Woods says 457 people in the shire were booked for drink and drug driving offences from July 2025 to June 2026. Over summer, police will increase their presence to carry out more random breath and drug-testing operations.

“Getting behind the wheel while impaired not only puts the driver at risk, but also passengers, other motorists, cyclists and pedestrians,” Woods says.

Community address problem

Lisa Apostolides’s students at the Byron Youth Theatre know that if they are ever in an uncomfortable, unsafe or vulnerable situation at night and need help, they can call her to take them home and let their parents know their child is safe.

“[It’s about] being another adult in their life,” Apostolides says. “Sometimes [students would] be sharing stories with me how you know they’d all be cramming into a car and somebody be travelling in the boot … if there’s less transport, then people are gonna just take risks because they want to go out. They want to have fun.”

The director says she still sees young men hitchhiking. “I will always stop for a young person and take them where they need to go because I just feel for them because they’re stuck.”

Locals also have WhatsApp and Facebook groups to ask for lifts in and out of town. “With any of those things, who’s actually monitoring those? Who’s joining those?” Apostolides says.

“There’s no safety measure.”

Calls for train to be restored for locals, not tourists

Lydia Kindred, director of Northern Rivers Rail – a group campaigning to bring back the Byron train line – says the government’s decision to turn a deserted rail line that connected major towns into hiking trails instead of restoring it has cost residents, tourists and small businesses.

“[The government] believes that, according to an old, quite bogus study … it was going to be $7.2 million a kilometre to fix the tracks, and that was when they were in really good condition,” Kindred says.

“Even now, 13 years later, a study that’s been done by the other railway company that we’re working with has found that it’ll be a quarter of the cost of that.”

Kindred has written to Atchison’s office with the updated study and local surveys with thousands of responses in hopes the line could be considered for restoration.

Currently, Byron has a three-kilometre solar-powered train line connecting the town centre with hotels, with no direct passenger trains to Sydney or Brisbane.

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