Over the Australia day long weekend, speeding drivers made up almost half of offences detected by police during a four-day statewide road policing operation.
Operation Amity saw police highly visible and enforcing across Victorian roads and highways in an effort to reduce road trauma.
Police detected 2,261 speeding offences, with three quarters of those detections for speeding between 10km/h and 25km/h over the speed limit.
“Despite our warnings, we continue to detect a concerningly high number of motorists for speeding during these long weekend operations,” Road Policing Assistant Commissioner Glenn Weir said.
“Most speed detections are for low to mid-range speeding, which suggests to us that many motorists think it’s acceptable to travel just a little bit over the speed limit.
“What many motorists don’t seem to grasp is that speeding continues to be the leading cause of serious injury and fatal collisions – a quarter of last year’s fatal collisions were as a result of speed.”
A total of 5,206 traffic offences were detected during Operation Amity, including:
• 2,261 speeding offences – 1,742 of these for speeding between 10km/h and 25km/h over the limit
• 301 disqualified, suspended and unlicensed drivers
• 154 drink driving offences from 77,058 preliminary breath tests
• 121 drug driving offences from 2,142 roadside drug tests
• 221 disobey signs/signals
• 211 mobile phone offences
• 79 seatbelt offences
• 77 vehicle impoundments
• 447 unregistered vehicles
There were two lives lost on Victorian roads over the long weekend, including a 59-year-old Wodonga resident who died following a motorcycle crash in Guys Forest on Saturday 27 January, and an 89-year-old Wallan man who died when his car collided with a tree in Whittlesea on Sunday 28 January.
The weekend’s fatalities bring Victoria’s lives lost to 22, compared to 28 at the same time last year.
With the return of school this week, police are urging motorists to adhere to the 40km/h speed limit in school zones and are warning that reduced speeds will be actively enforced.
“We need people to stop being reckless and speeding unnecessarily to get to your destination faster – you’d rather arrive 5 or 10 minutes late, than not at all,” AC Weir said.
“We’ll continue to prioritise speeding enforcement and with school returning this week, we’ll be focusing on enforcing speed limits around school zone.”
Operation Amity ran from 12.01am Thursday 25 January to 11.59pm Sunday 28 January.
