Cop shares ‘gut-wrenching’ consequences of Western Downs road toll ahead of Operation Zero
‘Forever forced into a devastating new normal’: A senior police officer has begged motorists to ‘take collective action now to stop the bloodshed’, with officers preparing to launch a massive road blitz to curb shocking death rates.
South Burnett
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A senior police officer has begged motorists to “take collective action now to stop the bloodshed”, ahead of the Western Down’s region’s deadliest month on the roads.
South West Senior Sergeant Chris Mitchell led an early morning road safety blitz on the Warrego Highway on Monday, ahead of the July start of Operation Zero. The campaign is designed to combat unnecessary road deaths.
“Tragically, July is the district’s deadliest month when it comes to the road toll and I’m asking the community to join us and do their part in stopping the carnage,” Sergeant Mitchell said.
“You can expect to see police anytime, anywhere, with random roadside breath and drugs tests and if you’re found to be doing the wrong thing, you will face the consequences.
“That can mean loss of licence and, depending on the charge, a real possibility of jail time.”
The road blitz busted 87 motorists on the major highway, including unregistered drivers, defective vehicles and drivers of overweight caravans and trailers.
Sergeant Mitchell, a tactician turned road safety co-ordinator, said while this may seem “drastic”, it was nothing compared to the heartache and trauma experienced by the families and friends of those killed in traffic crashes.
“Over the years, I’ve delivered the terrible news to too many families that their loved one won’t be coming home again,” he said.
“Again and again when delivering that same gut-wrenching death message – to different faces and in different places – the same senseless feeling of loss was apparent, a terrible toll for the families left behind, forever forced into a devastating ‘new normal’.
“And nearly every one of my colleagues knows that feeling, too. Stories of vibrant people now lost to this world – reduced to a number filed under the ‘fatal’ ledger.”
Senior Sergeant Mitchell said all road users needed to wake up to the realities of the risks they’re taking on our roads, and as a community, take collective action to “stop this bloodshed”.
The Western Downs region has been no stranger to tragedy in recent months, with a father of eight child killed in a tragic motorcycle crash at Tara just last week.
Navarre ‘Axle’ Wilton, 31, was killed instantly when his motorcycle left the road and crashed into a tree off Tara-Kogan Rd just after noon Thursday.
The beginning of June left a 16-year-old girl is fighting for life in Brisbane Princess Alexandra Hospital following a horror crash in Chinchilla.
The teenager was critically injured when a Toyota LandCruiser that she was a passenger in crashed through a fence and into a house on Wambo St about 8.40pm on June 2.
A second 16-year-old girl was taken to Toowoomba Hospital with a serious facial laceration.
Two more people were killed following a horror crash on the Warrego Highway in January, including 45-year-old Brett Knecht, who died when the truck he was driving collided with a car at Bowenville.
The driver of the car, a 22-year-old Pialba woman, was also killed in the crash.
A week later tragedy struck again on the Warrego Highway with the death of an 86-year-old Ipswich man.
The man died instantly when his car collided with a truck carting wheat at Bowenville on February 7.
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Originally published as Cop shares ‘gut-wrenching’ consequences of Western Downs road toll ahead of Operation Zero
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