General News
13 June, 2025
Statewide road blitz saw business as usual locally despite poor weather
Maryborough Highway Patrol were “pleased” with local drivers following a state-wide blitz over the King’s Birthday long weekend.
The wet weather of last long weekend didn’t deter police across the state in Operation Regal, an effort to reduce road trauma through high visibility on the state’s roads.
Where the state’s stats have been condemned by Victoria Police, local drivers told a different story, leaving Central Goldfields Highway Patrol Sergeant Paul Martin happy with the weekend’s local outcome.
“Overall, I’d have to say, we were fairly pleased with the results. We weren’t seeing anything that stood out from what we’d regard as normal,” he said.
Around-the-clock attention from police detected 6005 offences with only 48 of those within the Goldfields PSA.
More than 40 percent of all detected offences across the state were for speeding echoing the Goldfields PSA which had 41 — the only offence type to break double digits making up almost all local offences.
However, Sgt Martin said this is within what they expected considering the increased traffic and police presence over the three days.
“We do expect to catch people speeding during the normal course of business but I’d have to say the speeds were generally at the lower end of the spectrum across the weekend,” he said.
Of Victoria’s detected speeding offences the majority were between 10km/h to 25km/h over the limit.
One in every 335 Victorian drivers tested were caught drink driving, only one within the Goldfields PSA.
Local police also caught two disqualified drivers and four unregistered vehicles compared to 435 and 546 across the state respectively.
It’s an overall positive outcome for Sgt Martin, particularly considering there were no major collisions reported or lives lost locally.
“We can certainly take some comfort out of the fact we weren’t faced with a serious injury or fatality in this area,” he said.
One fatal collision in Dhurringile on Sunday, plus two fatalities in the early hours of Tuesday morning in a collision at Orbost brought the lives lost on Victorian roads to 139 – up from 125 at the same time last year.
Road Policing Acting Assistant Commissioner David Byrt said the numbers seen across the state were unacceptable — particularly the number of motorists caught driving with alcohol or drugs in their system.
“It was very disappointing that we detected so many motorists disregarding the road rules over the weekend, especially during some treacherous weather conditions,” he said.
“It is even more difficult to avoid a collision in wet weather or when visibility is poor, if you’re speeding, distracted, or driving while impaired, and yet we caught so many people blatantly taking those risks.”
Despite Operation Regal being a positive story locally, that doesn’t mean there were no issues.
As the weather gets colder, the mornings foggier, and it gets darker earlier Sgt Martin reminds local drivers to turn on their headlights.
“There’s still a concerning number of people that are not turning on their headlights which will be a focus for us as we go through winter,” he said.
“During inclement weather that is a really important safety feature to have your headlights on. It’s about being seen by others and it’s certainly something that can prevent a driver from becoming involved in a collision because the other party was able to see them.”
While there’s room to reduce road trauma and improve drivers’ safety local motorists can leave the long weekend patting the community on the back.
“It was all pretty good really. I’ve got to be honest,” he said.