Drivers in the central Victorian area committed almost 200 offences over the Queen's Birthday long weekend.
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Bendigo Highway Patrol Senior Sergeant Ian Brooks said the Bendigo division -which stretches from Gisborne to Echuca - saw 199 offences in total while 1945 preliminary breath tests and 150 drug tests were conducted as part of Operation Regal.
"In our Bendigo division we had 10 drink or drug-driving offences," he said. "Other offences ranged from speeding, seatbelt and mobile phone offences.
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"There were also quite a few unlicensed drivers. It was not abnormally high but still higher than we like to see. Some were just people who haven't renewed their licence while others were people deliberately driving around without a licence.
"Mobile phones and seatbelt offences weren't high but that is still people taking risk. The risk is you being distracted and killing someone."
Senior Sergeant Brooks said the positive from Operation Regal was that there were no fatalities over the weekend.
"We had four serious injury collisions scattered around the division," he said. "Three of them were preventable if people were obeying the road rules.
"Driver behaviour could have been better but it was not as bad as it has been. I am still bemused that people don't wear seatbelts. I can't comprehend why people don't do that."
With Melbourne residents unable to travel more than 25km from home under current coronavirus restriction, Senior Sergeant Brooks said there was less traffic on the region's roads.
"Anecdotally, the people who worked over the weekend picked up one or two people (travelling outside of Melbourne) a night," he said.
"in a majority of cases it was people who were a bit confused about how far 25km is from their homes but some were deliberate breaches where people tried to get away to holiday destinations.
"It is quite disappointing people are taking those risks. We need every to be vigilant about this disease."
Senior Sergeant Brooks said there were as many officers out on the roads for operation Regal as usual despite traffic volume being down.
"Overall volume was down but we expected that," he said. "The majority of people obeyed the rules and regulations in relation to COVID-19 but obviously some people didn't.
"There was a misconception that there wouldn't be a lot of police out at the weekend but some people's wallets found out that was wrong.
"We were out there in numbers. not just highway patrol but uniforms from all sections. It was a joint effort by everybody."
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