Victoria Police slams road users after nabbing thousands of drivers over holiday period

Victoria Police has lashed the “totally unacceptable” behaviour of road users across the Christmas holiday period, after almost 20,000 offences in just 18 days.

Victoria Police detected almost 20,000 traffic offences in just 18 days as driver behaviour was slammed as “totally unacceptable” over the holiday season.

Between December 15 and January 1, officers recorded 668 drink driving offences and 535 drug driving offences, despite 2023 resulting in the highest road toll since 2008.

In that 18-day period, 16 people were killed on the state’s roads.

More than a third of the total offences recorded were related to speeding, with nearly 6000 motorists nabbed for speeding between 10km/h and 25km/h over the limit.

Almost 20,000 traffic offences were detected and 16 people were killed on the state’s road in the holiday period. Picture: Ian Currie

More than 900 drivers were ticketed for using a mobile phone and 374 seatbelt offences were recorded.

In total, 7631 speeding drivers were caught, 704 unlicensed drivers were stopped and 1728 vehicles were found to be unregistered.

Victoria Police Road Policing Assistant Commissioner Glenn Weir said the fact drivers were blatantly ignoring basic road rules over the Christmas holiday period was a “major concern” for the force.

Police Commissioner Glenn Weir wasn’t impress with what he saw during Operation Roadwise. Picture: Jason Edwards

“While the majority of road users have acted responsibly over the Christmas and New Year period, the fact we’ve detected over 19,000 offences in 18 days remains totally unacceptable,” he said.

“We’ve seen people making deliberate and conscious decisions that significantly increases the likelihood of road trauma, putting themselves and other road users at risk.

“Speeding more than 10km/h over the limit is completely avoidable, and yet we continue to detect so many drivers for this offence.

“Despite our warnings of a significant focus on alcohol and drug testing over the period, this did not appear to deter some motorists, with more than 1,000 caught for drink or drug driving offences – this remains a major concern to us.

“We’ll be doing all we can to ensure that we don’t have another year on the roads like we had in 2023.”

Last year was the worst on the state’s roads in 15 years, with the road toll climbing to 296.