By Cam Lucadou-Wells
A whopping 173 drivers were caught speeding in Melbourne’s South-East during the Grand Final weekend traffic blitz, Operation Scoreboard.
Inspector Alison Crombie, who oversees the Southern Metropolitan policing area, was particularly “horrified” by the 142 motorists detected speeding between 10-25 km/h over the limit.
Ten drivers broke the speed limit by more than 25 km/h.
“It is also disappointing to see the number of unregistered vehicles on our roads (46 during the operation),” Insp Crombie said.
“Vehicles require registration for a reason, and one of the reasons is to keep all road users safe.”
Overall, drivers were booked with 517 offences across 29 September-1 October in Greater Dandenong, Casey and Cardinia.
During the operation, 13,730 breath tests were conducted, with 22 drink-drivers charged as well as three who refused breath tests. Fifty-seven failed pre-oral and oral fluid tests for drugs.
Insp Crombie said that ice-affected drivers were becoming a bigger issue than alcohol. They drive aggressively and are more prone to take risks, she said.
“They think they’re invincible.
“But it only takes an error of judgement or a lapse of concentration and you could cause a collision.”
There were also 29 disqualified drivers and 22 unlicensed drivers intercepted.
Highway Patrol police have had a particularly heavy presence to curb the alarming state-highest death toll in the South-East region – 21 so far this year. Most of the fatal crashes are attributed to risk-taking driver behaviour, which is sadly avoidable.
Paradoxically, reported collisions are, however, down.
The spate of speeding has also been seen during Operation Visible, which has targeted peak-time drivers on the Monash Freeway since July.
Fifty-eight lead-foot drivers – again mainly exceeding by 10-25km/h – have been booked. Overall 108 offences have been detected.
Insp Crombie said the overt operation was partly about police being seen by large volumes of freeway drivers, in the hope that it translates to better behaviour in general.
She’s concerned by drivers following vehicles too closely.
“There’s deliberate tail-gating, such as in the road-works (80 km/h) zones.
“But there’s also a lot of people who don’t have any concept that they’re following too closely behind another car.”
“I think the majority of people are doing the right thing, but I think there’s a minority of people who don’t pay heed to warnings.”
