Shocking behaviour of NSW drivers exposed as police become fed up

The Daily Telegraph can reveal some of the worst alleged instances of drug and dangerous driving, with one of the state’s top cops admitting it is tough to get the road safety message through to “arrogant” motorists.

An unlicensed driver, whose car was held together with cable ties, was allegedly high on ice when he was caught using his phone behind the wheel in Dubbo on December 28.

Drug and dangerous driving has been rife throughout the Christmas and New Year holidays, with one of the state’s top cops admitting it is tough to get the road safety message through to “arrogant” motorists.

There were 28 times as many drug drivers caught as drink drivers between December 22 and New Year’s Eve as NSW Police waged their annual high-visibility road safety campaign across the state.

A total of 1200 drug drivers were caught from just 26,000 tests, while 521 drivers were over the alcohol limit from 313,000 breath tests.

The Daily Telegraph can reveal some of the worst alleged instances from the last few weeks include a disqualified learner driver doing 220km/h on the Sturt Hwy and a man doing 144km/h at Pyrmont with his wife and daughter in the car – all for a social media video.

“How does a 32-year-old driver, with his 11-year-old daughter in the car, think it’s OK to get up to 140km/h to get a clip for social media?” NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Brett McFadden said.

A 56-year-old man was caught with guns and drugs in the car, and found to have no licence, when he was pulled over at Dubbo on December 29.

“Each of these examples that you’ve got, I come back to the sliding doors – luckily we got to these people before they could cause carnage.

“It’s a really sad indictment on our cohort of drivers that they just do not care about anyone else.”

In other shocking incidents from over the holidays, a man was arrested in the carpark of a McDonald’s in Newcastle for allegedly being behind the wheel with a blood-alcohol level of 0.330 – almost seven times over the limit – at 10am.

Two other motorists were also allegedly caught racing each other at 174km/h not far from where two people had died a day earlier in a horror crash at Lithgow.

A 50-year-old man was arrested for being almost seven times over the limit at 10am at McDonalds in Newcastle on New Year's Eve.

A man was caught doing 144km/h in Pyrmont and when caught, told police the reason he was speeding was that "he had only sped because his wife wanted to film it for social media".

There was also a man at Dubbo whose car was held together with cable ties, and another at Griffith who police say tried to convince them the fake licence he ordered online allowed him on the roads.

NRMA spokesman Peter Khoury thanked NSW Police for preventing these incidents leading to more deaths on the roads.

“In every one of those instances, the community are just lucky that they did not end in multiple fatalities,” Mr Khoury said.

“The only thing standing between these people and the rest of society, is the men and women of the NSW Police Force.

“Until police had pulled these people over they had gone on their merry way undertaking some of the most appalling behaviour behind the wheel that we have seen.”