More than 7,000 offences were detected during a major road safety effort over the King’s Birthday long weekend.
Operation Regal saw police targeting high-risk driving behaviour across the state over four days in an effort to drive down road trauma.
The number of infringements issued by police increased eight per cent on the same period last year, with speeding making up 40 per cent of all offences detected.
Police conducted 107,025 preliminary breath tests, with one in every 541 motorists tested caught drink driving.
A further 147 drivers returned a positive roadside drug test, with 2,263 tests conducted.
Automatic numberplate recognition technology helped police detect 410 unauthorised drivers – either for being unlicenced, disqualified or suspended.
The total 7,099 offences detected during Operation Regal included:
• 2,855 speeding offences
• 676 unregistered vehicles
• 410 disqualified/suspended and unlicenced drivers
• 259 disobey signs/signals
• 222 mobile phone offences
• 198 drink driving offences from 107,025 preliminary breath tests
• 147 drug driving offences from 2,263 roadside drug tests
• 100 seatbelt offences; and
• 94 vehicle impoundments
There were two lives lost over the long weekend, including a 29-year-old Dandenong North female pedestrian who was struck in a fatal hit-run in Dandenong on 7 June, and a 29-year-old Chelsea male motorcyclist who died following a collision in Chelsea on 9 June.
The weekend’s fatalities bring the total lives lost to 126 in Victoria, with motorcyclist fatalities increasing to 33 from 19 at the same time last year.
Pedestrian fatalities have doubled to 20 from 10 at the same time last year.
With wet weather and poor visibility increasing as winter sets in across Victoria, police are urging motorists to take extra care on the roads and be on the lookout for vulnerable road users – particularly motorcyclists and pedestrians.
Police will remain highly visible on the roads across the state, with targeted operations to take place over the coming weeks focusing on vulnerable road user safety.
Operation Regal ran from 12:01am Friday 7 June until 23:59pm on Monday 10 June 2024.
Quotes attributable to Road Policing Assistant Commissioner Glenn Weir:
“It was very disappointing that we detected so many people disregarding the road rules over the long weekend, especially considering there was some fairly poor weather to contend with.
“It is much harder to avoid a collision in wet weather if you’re speeding, distracted, or driving while impaired, and yet we caught so many people taking those risks.
“Even more concerning was the high number of people detected drink or drug driving – these people are making reckless and selfish decisions that not only puts themselves at risk, but all other road users.
“It only takes one poor decision and a split second to cause a tragedy, and yet we’ve seen far too much of that on our roads this year.
“Police will continue to enforce against those who engage in risky driving behaviour – there will be zero tolerance for those who blatantly disregard the road rules.”
