Melbourne man fined after driving almost 50km to get petrol

A man has been slugged $1652 for going to get petrol for his car in Victoria. But there was one reason police thought it broke the rules.

A Melbourne man who claimed he couldn’t find a petrol station within 5km of his home has been fined after driving almost 50km to fill up.

Police said they stopped the man at a checkpoint in Rosebud where he said he had travelled from Cranbourne and was in the area to get petrol.

The man was hit with a $1652 fine for breaching the chief health officer’s restrictions after he failed to stay within 5km of his home to purchase essential supplies.

Another man chasing some “nice weather” was also intercepted at a vehicle checkpoint near Frankston on Sunday after driving almost 50km to get there.

He told police he had travelled from Doncaster in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs where there weren’t “any nice parks” and “he wanted to go to one because of the nice weather”.

The pair were among 177 Victorians fined for breaching the chief health officer’s directions in the past 24 hours.

Another man was fined $4957 for trying to escape the city without a valid reason after driving more than 50km from Coburg to Bacchus Marsh on Sunday to buy groceries.

Police and ADF check work permits and identification at a roadblock in Little River. Picture: Daniel Pockett/Getty Images

In another breach, at least three people were fined when police found a group of six at an apartment in the city but only three actually lived there.

Two men were also caught in a rideshare car in Melton just before 4am on Sunday and told police they were on their way to visit family.

One was from Deer Park and the other was from Tarneit, with both fined for being more than 5km from home and breaching curfew.

The pair were among 45 people caught breaching curfew in the past 24 hours, while 13 also failed to wear a face covering.

Police have now issued 11,080 infringements during Victoria’s second wave when stage 3 restrictions were reinstated in Melbourne in early July, a total of more than $15.6 million in fines.

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