Thousands of offences detected as police aim to reduce Victorian road toll

Operation Arid saw about 7000 traffic offences recorded throughout a four-day operation, with speeding, impaired driving, mobile phone use and unauthorised driving again the key issues identified by officers.

In the Bendigo police service area, there were five drink drivers, two drug drivers, three disqualified drivers and 33 speeding offences detected.

Seven motorists were detected disobeying signs or signals and eight motorists were caught driving unregistered vehicles.

There were no mobile phone offences detected in the Bendigo area.

According to Victoria Police, more than a third of offences detected were related to speeding and about 80 per cent of speeding motorists were detected driving between 10 kilometres per hour and 25 kilometres per hour over the speed limit.

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There were 198 drink driving offences and 192 drug driving offences recorded.

Mobile phone offences increased by 23 per cent compared to the last major operation. More than 300 motorists were caught using their phone while driving.

Just under 400 unauthorised drivers were detected using automatic numberplate recognition technology.

In the Western Region, which stretches from Mildura to Geelong and encompasses central Victoria, 80 drug and drink driving offences were recorded.

Nine per cent of total offences were speeding offences in the Western Region, with 642 drivers nabbed going too fast.

There were 23 mobile phone offences in the region.

There were two deaths recorded in the state during the long weekend, following fatal collisions in Barnawartha North on Saturday and Wangaratta on Monday.

There have been 11 deaths this month so far, with March historically the highest-risk month on Victorian roads.

There have been 74 lives lost in the first 73 days of the year which is 45 per cent higher than the same time last year and the five-year average of 51.

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Assistant Commissioner Road Policing, Glenn Weir, said the majority of people were doing the right thing on the roads.

"Disappointingly though, we continue to detect motorists for the type of behaviour that's been contributing to road trauma this year, that being speed, distraction, and impaired driving," he said.

"It is simply not good enough to just ignore the warnings. The reality is, there has been more lives lost on our roads than there have been days this year.

Assistant commissioner Weir said police were doing everything they could to reduce road trauma.

"March is a busy time with footy returning, lots of major events and good weather, so if you're out and about this month, you can expect us to be out too," he said.

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