General News
9 March, 2023
Police to target risky driver behaviour over long weekend
Police will be out in force across the state over the Labour Day long weekend, with specialised Operation Arid kicking off today as Victoria Police voice concerns over a significant spike in lives lost on rural roads this year — including locally...
Police will be out in force across the state over the Labour Day long weekend, with specialised Operation Arid kicking off today as Victoria Police voice concerns over a significant spike in lives lost on rural roads this year — including locally.
The operation will run until midnight Monday targeting high-risk driving behaviour and non-compliance — speed, distraction, fatigue and not wearing a seatbelt which are major contributors to single-vehicle fatal collisions — in an effort to reduce road trauma.
According to Victoria Police, more than half of this year’s fatalities resulted from single-vehicle collisions, with two-thirds occurring on rural roads and 80 percent of those involving vehicles leaving the road and colliding with a roadside object — predominately trees.
The trend is being over-whelmingly caused by minor forms of non-compliance, rather than extreme driving behaviour, police say.
There has been two fatal collisions in the Goldfields Police Service Area this year, one of which was in the Central Goldfields Shire.
A man died in single-vehicle crash when his car left the road and hit a tree on February 26 on the Maryborough-St Arnaud Road at Rathscar.
Earlier on January 30, a Dunolly woman died in a two-car collision at the Bridgewater-Maldon Road and Bendigo-Maryborough Road intersection at Laanecoorie.
Victoria Police Assistant Commissioner Road Policing Glenn Weir said March is historically the highest-risk month on Victorian roads, with collisions peaking during the month over the last five years.
“March is historically a high-risk month for road trauma and we cannot afford complacency on our roads. Complacency is the true contributor to road trauma,” he said.
“We know the Labour Day long weekend is a busy period for events and a popular time to travel, so we’re anticipating lots of Victorians hitting the roads over the coming days.
“We’ll be out with our full contingent of police vehicles to ensure everyone is doing their bit to keep themselves and all other road users safe.
“It’s been a shocking start to the year on our roads — particularly on our rural roads. However a lot of the trauma we’re experiencing, particularly those single-vehicle fatal collisions, is tragically avoidable.
“It’s up to all of us to turn this around and while police will be out enforcing at every opportunity, we cannot achieve this alone.”
As of Wednesday, there were 42 deaths on rural roads since January — a 57 percent increase on the five-year average.