Top Cop Blasts Motorists' Careless Attitude

The Age

Monday January 5, 2009

By ADRIAN LOWE

POLICE will never get the road safety message through to some speeding, drunk and drugged motorists, Victoria's chief traffic policeman has conceded as a horror new year began on the state's roads.

Six people have already died in Victoria since the new year began. Yesterday in Bairnsdale, a woman died when her car hit a pole, split in half and caught on fire, while a 36-year-old woman died in northern Katamatite, near Cobram. The fatalities follow four deaths on New Year's Day.

Assistant commissioner for traffic Ken Lay told The Age that some motorists continued to hold a indifferent attitude towards road safety.

"There is a group of people that will never obey the law unless, or until, they're actually caught, put in jail, kill themselves or kill someone else. We understand that. There is this group we simply cannot get to," Mr Lay said.

"People who drive cars are reflective of the broader community and there (are) people in the broader community who simply don't play by the rules, so you get a group of drivers who do exactly the same thing.

"No matter what the law is, no matter what the penalty is, there will still be people that drive at stupid speeds (and) drive full of grog and full of drugs."

Victoria led the Christmas-New Year national road toll with 16 deaths, despite police running Operation Aegis, the largest traffic operation in the state's history, between December 19 and January 2. There were 13 deaths in Queensland and 11 in NSW.

Victoria's high holiday road toll is in stark contrast to the final figure for 2008. At 304, it was the lowest in the state's history.

Mr Lay agreed it was an odd difference but stood by Victoria Police's traffic operations.

"It doesn't make sense but ... some Victorians (are) just not getting this bit about Christmas being a dangerous time," he said.

"We've got a really good model and that's strong enforcement with strong public education and that's the model we've used in the past 12 months. It should be noted that we're one of the few states in Australia that's actually had a reduction over the Christmas period - albeit that it's been such a sad period."

Mr Lay said despite the higher toll, he was relatively satisfied with the running of Operation Aegis.

"We'll go through what worked well, what didn't work so well and refine it. We know this model works."

Police plan to run three more such operations this year - at Easter, Queen's Birthday weekend and next Christmas.

During the holiday period, Victoria Police caught 8247 speeding motorists, as well as arresting 1883 people for mobile phone offences. They caught 1622 motorists driving without a seatbelt, 1169 disqualified or unlicensed drivers and 27 drugged drivers.

© 2009 The Age

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