Easter long weekend sees almost 8000 offences

Police were out and visible over Easter. Picture: ON FILE

Victoria Police says it detected almost 8000 traffic offences over the Easter long weekend, during a five day operation.

Operation Nexus saw police highly visible and actively enforcing across the state in an effort to reduce road trauma.

It follows a shocking start to the year on Victoria’s roads with 89 lives lost, up 25 per cent on the five-year average.

Good Friday accounted for almost a quarter of all detections over the Easter period, with 101 motorists caught drink and drug driving on this day alone.

More than a third of all offences detected were for speeding, with almost 80 per cent of motorists detected between 10km/h and 25km/h over the speed limit.

Almost a quarter of speeding offences were detected on Easter Monday, the final day of the operation.

Mobile phone offences jumped 31 per cent from last year’s Easter road policing operation with 343 motorists caught using their phones while driving.

Police also detected and removed 529 unauthorised drivers from roads, including suspended, disqualified and unlicensed drivers.

The total 7741 offences detected during Operation Nexus included:

• 2908 speeding offences;

• 920 unregistered vehicles;

• 529 disqualified/suspended and unlicenced drivers;

• 343 mobile phone offences;

• 318 disobey signs/signals;

• 231 drink driving offences from 106,838 preliminary breath tests;

• 175 drug driving offences from 3263 roadside drug tests;

• 167 vehicle impoundments; and

• 163 seatbelt offences

There were two lives lost on Victorian roads over the Easter period, with single-vehicle fatal collisions in White Hills on Friday and Wangaratta on Sunday.

With five lives lost to date in April, police enforcement will continue across the state throughout the school holiday period and the unofficial Anzac Day long weekend later this month.

Operation Nexus ran from 12:01am on Thursday 6 April and concluded at 23:59pm on Monday 10 April 2023.