A drink-driver was nabbed almost every second day in the Warrnambool policing area over the holiday period.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Twenty-two drivers were caught in 52 days as part of a statewide blitz.
Warrnambool’s Senior Sergeant Shane Keogh said some drivers still weren’t getting the message.
He said a Warrnambool woman caught earlier this week had a blood-alcohol reading of .18 — almost four times the legal limit.
The woman had recently had an interlock device removed from her car for a previous drink-driving offence.
During the Summer Stay road enforcement campaign, police in the Warrnambool area carried out 21,526 preliminary breath tests.
They detected 1146 traffic offences and issued 972 penalty notices.
The remaining 174 traffic offences will be dealt with through the courts.
Senior Sergeant Keogh said this weekend police would again target drink-drivers, speeders and motorists using mobile phones.
“We will be out in force trying to give out as many tickets as we can,” he said.
“We don’t want to see any road trauma whatsoever. A fatality will stay with everyone for a very long time, as do serious road injuries.”
Across the state, police detected 75,985 traffic offences during the campaign.
They breath-tested more than 1.2 million road users, drug tested a further 7631 and detected 5045 disqualified and unlicensed drivers.
In all the blitz netted 6559 unregistered vehicles, 2863 drink-drivers, 396 drug-drivers, 24,709 speeding offences, 3299 seatbelt offences, 6077 mobile phone offences and 472 vehicle impoundments.
Assistant Commissioner for Road Policing Robert Hill said it was disappointing to see people who knew they shouldn’t be behind the wheel put other road users in danger, especially at such a high-risk time.
“Unauthorised and impaired drivers have no place on our roads at any time of the year, yet we continue to see significant numbers detected,” he said.
More than 1700 drink and drug-drivers were taken off the road during Operation RAID alone, which ran for three weeks at the beginning of the campaign.