By Mitchell Clarke
The road safety message hasn’t sunk in for some, as 25 drug drivers and 11 drink drivers were nabbed in Cardinia during a Christmas/New Year road policing operation.
Operation Roadwise, which began on 19 December and finished on 5 January, saw total 360 offences detected in the municipality alone.
Of those offences, 13 were disqualified drivers while 12 drivers were nabbed without a license and 42 were driving unregistered vehicles.
Road policing assistant commissioner Libby Murphy said it was alarming how many unauthorised drivers police were detecting.
“Every one of those drivers detected by police should not have been on the road for one reason or another,” AC Murphy said.
“We are already off to a sad start this year and I do not want to see any more Victorians dying unnecessarily.”
In Casey, 20 drug drivers 11 drink drivers were caught while 15 disqualified and 23 unlicensed drivers were detected.
Across Victoria, police detected more than 22,313 traffic and 2,910 criminal offences.
In some comforting news, despite 2019 being a “particularly challenging” year on the roads, the latter six months of the year saw the number of deaths finish at a 10 year low.
“It is comforting to know that over the past six months that through a combination of enforcement efforts and community messaging we are starting to see a difference,” AC Murphy added.
“Saying this I don’t want to lose momentum and have history repeat itself, which saw a shocking number of people lose their lives at the beginning of last year.”
There was one double fatality and 15 single fatality collisions during Operation Roadwise state-wide.
