By MARA PATTISON-SOWDEN
YARRA Ranges’ top traffic cop isn’t confident that drivers will heed the speeding message over Christmas, but he has no sympathy for those who get caught breaking the road laws.
Sergeant John Morgan says the Yarra Ranges Highway Patrol has unprecedented numbers of police on patrols throughout the Dandenong Ranges, Yarra Valley and the suburbs over the summer season.
With just one of his highway patrol officers charging almost 30 people and breath testing another 70 drivers over three days last week, he said if the situation wasn’t so serious it would be laughable.
Sgt Morgan said current statistics from Operation Raid showed the Yarra Ranges Police had breath tested more drivers than any of the other 53 Police Service Areas, with 21,205 drivers tested so far.
They have charged more drink drivers than any of the other Police Service Areas in Victoria, with 49 drivers charged with exceeding the blood alcohol limit.
They have also issued 956 traffic charges, which is higher than 49 of the other 53 Police Service Areas.
Sgt Morgan said it wasn’t surprising with the number of offences being detected by his members that the Yarra Ranges always featured predominantly in the collision statistics.
“It feels like we’re in the wild west out here at the moment … I don’t know exactly what is happening but a lot of people seem to have left their brains on the couch,” he said.“We have unprecedented numbers of police on patrols within the Yarra Ranges and yet some idiots continue to drive at ridiculously excessive speeds or while affected by alcohol and the really fair dinkum stupid ones do both.”
He said the Yarra Ranges Highway Patrol was participating in state-wide Operation Raid and no less than five local TAC-funded traffic operations.
“We have been given thousands of hours of overtime for our officers so daily we have between two and 12 extra police on top of our normal resources,” he said.
Sergeant Morgan said there were many reasons the Yarra Ranges was a high risk area, including predominantly 60 and 80km/hour speed limits and the dangers of roads such as Belgrave Hallam Road, Mount Dandenong Tourist Road, and the Yarra Valley’s Maroondah, Melba and Warburton Highways.
“It’s no surprise when we have a crash, we have a big crash,” he said.
“The Yarra Ranges is always in the top three areas for fatalities and the top two or three areas for serious injury crashes.”
