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Busy Easter weekend for police

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Blitz: Police detected 150 drivers doing the wrong thing in Greater Shepparton during a five-day Easter road operation. Photo by Rodney Braithwaite

Seven people were charged with drink driving and five with drug driving in Greater Shepparton during a five-day police blitz on the Easter long weekend.

The charges came after 2078 breath tests were conducted by police since Thursday, April 6.

They were among 150 offences detected by local police.

Three motorists also lost their licences immediately for driving at speeds more than 25km/h above the limit.

Two people were also picked up using their mobile phone while driving, and four were not wearing seatbelts.

Five of the offences in Greater Shepparton were motorcycle-related.

A total of 415 offences were detected by police in Eastern Region Division 3, which takes in Mitchell, Greater Shepparton, Strathbogie, Benalla, Stirling and Murrindindi council areas.

Of these, 26 motorists were caught drink or drug driving, after 7446 tests were done in the area.

Three serious injury collisions were also recorded in the region.

Eastern Region Division 3 highway patrol Senior Sergeant David Gillespie said while the numbers of offences detected was disappointing, it was notable that the volume of traffic was significant.

“Local police reported that, generally speaking, road user behaviour was good, so when we put this in perspective of the hundreds of thousands of people on our local roads at this time, it was only a very small percentage of road users who did not do the right thing,” he said.

“Most importantly, no-one died on our local roads, which is what everyone in the community wants to achieve.”

Sen Sgt Gillespie said while there were three serious injury collisions recorded in the division, the collision rates were low when you took into account the high traffic volume in the region over the five days.

He urged people to continue to do the right thing on the roads.

“I would ask that we all as a community continue to work very hard at ensuring we have no trauma on our local roads, that we look out for one another, and support one another to make good decisions and keep safe,” he said.

Long weekend wrap-up Police detected 7741 traffic offences throughout Victoria during the five-day Easter long weekend.

• 2908 speeding

• 920 unregistered vehicles

• 529 driving without a licence

• 343 using mobile phones

• 318 disobeying signs or signals

• 231 drink drivers from 106,838 preliminary breath tests

• 175 drug driving offences from 3263 roadside drug tests

• 167 vehicle impoundments

• 163 seatbelt offences