Four-day Operation Arid aimed at reducing "shockingly" high levels of road trauma

Starting on Friday, Operation Arid will run for four days, with police targeting high-risk driving behaviour and other forms of non-compliance with the law.

Police were determined to turn around "a shocking start to the year on the roads", which saw 68 lives lost in the first 66 days of the year in Victoria, they said.

A significant spike in rural fatalities was a major contributor to the figure, with 42 of the deaths occurring in the country - a 57 per cent increase on the five-year average rural road toll.

In Bendigo and surrounds there have been three fatal collisions this year.

That was down from five at the same time last year and the five-year average of 4.4 deaths.

Police said analysis showed more than half of the rural road deaths this year resulted from single-vehicle collisions, with 80 per cent involving vehicles leaving the road and colliding with a roadside object - predominately trees.

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A lot of the road trauma, particularly the single vehicle accidents, was "tragically avoidable" and caused by minor forms of non-compliance rather than extreme driving behaviour, they said.

This suggested simple mistakes behind the wheel were leading to catastrophic consequences.

"It's up to all of us to turn this around and while police will be out enforcing at every opportunity, we cannot achieve this alone," Victoria Police Assistant Commissioner of Road Policing, Glenn Weir, said.

"We need everyone to play their part, and that means getting back to basics behind the wheel - slow down, put down the mobile phone and pay attention to road signs, other road users and surroundings.

"March is historically a high-risk month for road trauma and we cannot afford complacency on our roads. Complacency is the true contributor to road trauma."

In addition to long weekend travel and rural roads, police plan to focus their enforcement efforts on major events and music festivals across the state, with extensive alcohol and drug testing taking place.

Operation Arid commences just after midnight this Friday and will run through to a minute before midnight on Monday.

There were 7193 traffic offences detected across the Labour Day long weekend last year with 2987 speeding offences, 284 drink drivers, 231 drug drivers, 239 mobile phone offences and 150 seatbelt offences.

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