Road safety campaign to kick off Thursday, motorist warned to follow rules
COPS are putting punters on notice this Christmas season – flout the road rules and you will be caught
Northern Territory
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COPS are putting punters on notice this Christmas season – flout the road rules and you will be caught.
Operation Roland, the NT Police’s road safety Christmas campaign, kicks off tomorrow and Palmerston and Road Policing Acting Superintendent Paul Faustmann said there would be a focus on drink and drug drivers.
He said motorists could expect to see large scale breath testing stations as well as roaming stations right across the NT.
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“If the public don’t get on board and take responsibility and share the responsibility on our roads for keeping people safe; we don’t want to head in the same direction as 2019, because in December we lost 12 people, which is a real large number of persons to die on a road, especially in the Territory roads and within a month,” A/Supt Faustmann said.
He said with the advancement of technology more people could expect to be drug tested this holiday season.
“We are increasing the number of persons that we are drug testing, who are driving on our roads,” he said.
“So, I expect that, and I want the public to be aware, it’s not just alcohol, we’re targeting drugs as well.”
A/Supt Faustmann said the number of people nabbed for drug driving had increased over the past two years but he believed the spike correlated with the increase in testing for drugs.
“It’s very difficult to get an indication and say well, two years ago no one was drug driving and now there’s a lot of people drug driving, the fact of the matter exists, over the last two years the Northern Territory Police has invested a lot more money in the machinery and the testing technology and training of members to actually use that equipment,” he said.
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A/Supt Faustmann urged motorists, particularly those on rural or remote roads, to be careful after two people were killed in the past week on rural roads.
Operation Roland will run from Thursday December 17 and finish Thursday January 7.
To date 29 people have died on NT roads compared to 30 last year.
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