Victoria Police detected almost 8000 offences in the first five days of the Operation Compass road safety effort.
The statewide road policing operation commenced on Thursday 14 April and continued until Easter Monday, a historically a high-risk period on Victorian roads.
A third of the infringements issued were for speeding offenses, despite significant amounts of holiday traffic causing delays across the state’s roads.
Alarmingly, one in every 326 motorists was caught drink driving, with police conducting 101,917 preliminary breath tests over the operation’s first five days.
Police detected 579 unauthorised drivers for being disqualified and unlicenced, and a further 837 for driving unregistered vehicles.
The total 7783 offences detected during the first five days of Operation Compass included:
• 2948 speeding offences
• 837 unregistered vehicles
• 579 disqualified/suspended and unlicenced drivers
• 378 disobey signs/signals
• 313 drink driving offences from 101,917 preliminary breath tests
• 261 mobile phone offences
• 243 drug driving offences from 6615 roadside drug tests
• 193 vehicle impoundments; and
• 130 seatbelt offences
Two lives were lost on Victorian roads over the weekend, with fatal collisions in Elwood on Thursday 14 April and Greenwald in the state’s far southwest on Monday 18 April, bringing this year’s total to 78.
“Despite our best efforts, we still sadly saw two lives lost on Victorian roads over the weekend and police caught thousands of motorists engaging in unacceptable behaviour, putting themselves and others at risk,” Assistant Commissioner Road Policing Glenn Weir said.
“Operation Compass will continue this week, and while police will again be going all-out to reduce road trauma, we are pleading with motorists to please be patient and stay alert when travelling and returning home from holidays”.
Police are anticipating another busy period on the roads as the Anzac Day public holiday and end of Victorian school holidays coincide.
