MORE than 7000 offences were detected by Highway Patrol during a major road safety effort across the state over the King’s Birthday long weekend.

Operation Regal ran from 12.01 am Friday, June 7 until 11.59 pm on Monday, June 10, and saw police targeting high-risk driving behaviour across the state over four days in an effort to drive down road trauma, with 7099 offences detected in total.

The number of infringements issued by police increased eight per cent on the same period last year, with speeding making up 40 per cent of all offences detected.

Police conducted 107,025 preliminary breath tests, with 198 returning a positive result, meaning one in every 541 motorists tested were caught drink driving.

A further 147 drivers returned a positive roadside drug test, with 2263 tests conducted.

Automatic numberplate recognition technology helped police detect 410 unauthorised drivers – either for being unlicenced, disqualified or suspended.

The remaining offences included 676 unregistered vehicles, 259 disobey signs/signals, 222 mobile phone offences, 100 seatbelt offences and 94 vehicle impoundments.

Hamilton Highway Patrol officer, Sergeant Darren Smart said the most common offences detected in Hamilton over the weekend were people exceeding the speed limit, however majority of these were not locals.

“In Hamilton, our highway patrol had a fairly good weekend as far as road trauma goes,” he said.

“Our concern is that when people travel longer distances over the long weekend, such as Melbourne to Robe or to the Rocklands, they may not only be speeding but they are likely to also be fatigued when driving through the area.”

Sgt Smart also said that the highway patrol had an increased presence on local roads during the operation, breathalysing and drug testing drivers.  

“People would have seen us and members in uniform out and about with Hamilton PBT sites,” he said. 

“We were happy from our view we didn’t get any drink drivers; however, we did have one drug offended driver which is disappointing.

“We remind everyone, every day to play their part in road safety and keeping the community safe.”

There were two lives lost over the long weekend in Victoria, one 29-year-old female pedestrian who was struck in a fatal hit-run in Dandenong, and a 29-year-old male motorcyclist who died following a collision in Chelsea.

The weekend’s fatalities bring the total lives lost to 126 in Victoria, with motorcyclist fatalities increasing to 33 from 19 at the same time last year, and pedestrian fatalities have doubled to 20 from 10 at the same time last year.

With wet weather and poor visibility increasing as winter sets in across Victoria, police are urging motorists to take extra care on the roads and be on the lookout for vulnerable road users – particularly motorcyclists and pedestrians.

Police will remain highly visible on the roads across the state, with targeted operations to take place over the coming weeks focusing on vulnerable road user safety.