A shortage of police has been blamed for falling rates of random breath-testing in NSW as advocates call for an immediate lift to save lives on the state's roads.
A survey by motoring group NRMA shows about one in five drivers have been checked for alcohol in recent months.
NSW Police conducted more than 3.8 million random breath tests in 2022, down 36 per cent on the pre-pandemic figure from three years earlier.
About one in 250 of those tests registered a blood alcohol concentration above the legal limit of 0.05.
Premier Chris Minns said the falling numbers of tests was the result of chronic staff shortages in the NSW police force.
"(There are) 1500 officers under strength across NSW Police and that number, unfortunately, is increasing not declining," he said on Thursday.
Mr Minns added his government's decision to scrap the public service wages cap would help the state retain essential workers, allowing for more police to investigate crimes and carry out breath tests.
According to the NRMA survey, only 23 per cent of those polled had seen police conducting random breath tests (RBTs) in the last seven to 12 months, while 21 per cent said they had been stopped in the last six months.
Nearly a quarter of drivers had not seen breath-testing operations at all in the last year.
The survey figures come from the NRMA's poll of 3300 members across the state.
NRMA spokesman Peter Khoury said increasing the number of random breath tests on NSW roads was the "ultimate deterrent" to drink-drivers.
"The more drivers see them set up on the side of the road testing drivers, the more likely they are to not risk drink-driving," he said.
Western Australia carried out the most breath tests in 2022 compared to the number of licence holders in the state, followed by NSW, according to federal transport department data.
The NRMA called for the NSW government to dramatically increase the number of breath tests carried out, with a target of an average of 1.1 tests per year for each licence-holder - or 7.3 million tests statewide each year.
A NSW Police spokeswoman said in a statement that the number of breath tests carried out fluctuated "based on intelligence and operational needs and capabilities".
She said the current focus was on mobile random testing, rather than dedicated static random testing, to ensure an "anytime, anywhere" approach to policing drink-driving and drug-driving.
The NSW government last year set a target of halving road deaths across the state by 2030. About 15 per cent of road fatalities in NSW involve alcohol.
