Yesterday marked the start of Operation Arid, a four-day blitz which aims to reduce road trauma.

Hamilton Highway Patrol sergeant, Darren Smart, said people could expect to see a higher police presence across all roads this weekend, not just major highways.

“As per usual, police will be trying to put out a highly visible presence on the roads to reduce trauma,” he said.

“We will be focusing on both major highways and rural roads because unfortunately the road trauma on our local rural roads across the state is quite bad this year.

“We will also be visible on the back roads.”

With major events such as the Port Fairy Folk Festival also on this weekend, Sgt Smart said police would be targeting high-risk behaviour and non-compliance.

“We will be targeting normal speeding, impaired driving - meaning drug and alcohol use, distraction offences - such as mobile phones, seatbelts, and unauthorised driving,” he said.

“Hopefully with our visible presence we will combat a bit of fatigue as well in this area, which is a fair bit away from Melbourne.

“The Port Fairy Folk Festival is on so we will also be targeting traffic coming to and from there.

“We’ll be out to make sure people don’t remember the long weekend for all the wrong reasons.”

Sgt Smart said a concern locally was the increase in speeding offences seen across the region and he urged drivers to “do the right thing”.

“We’ve also locally noticed a rise in high speeds and loss of licence speeds (25 kilometres or more over the speed limit), so we’re seeing a lot more of those at the moment which is a concern,” he said.

“The higher speeds people are doing the more trauma that can be caused for them and other road users.

“Getting caught and receiving an infringement notice is bad enough but it could be a lot worse.

“Drivers just need to play their part. We can do so much to prevent them but ultimately it comes down to them.”

Within the first 67 days of this year, 68 lives have been lost in road accidents across the state, 18 more than the same time last year and a 45 per cent increase on the five-year average.

Of the 68 lives lost, 42 have occurred on rural roads - a 57 per cent increase on the five-year average.

Data shows more than half of this year’s fatalities resulted from single-vehicle collisions, with two-thirds occurring on rural roads and 80 per cent of those involving vehicles leaving the road and colliding with a roadside object - predominately trees.

Locally, January saw two fatal single-vehicle collisions occur within days of each other, with one at Mill Road and another in Mortlake.

Western Region assistant commissioner, Mick Grainger, said while the poor road conditions can contribute to road accidents, it often is not the cause.

“There’s a whole range of factors that influence the trauma that we’re seeing,” he said.

“I’m encouraging all our of our road users to drive to those conditions, don’t speed, don’t use your phone, put your seatbelt on and be respectful to other road users.

“Despite the feel around this, it is mostly local people dying on local roads.

“We have to focus on our task, drive to the conditions and make good choices.”

A concerning trend noticed by police is minor forms of non-compliance leading to catastrophic consequences, suggesting simple mistakes can be deadly.

Extensive alcohol and drug testing will also be conducted to prevent impaired driving.

Operation Arid ends at 23:59pm on Monday, March 13.