In the Orana Mid-Western Police District police conducted 5,186 breath tests, issued six seat belt offence tickets, 125 speeding infringements and 99 other tickets for driving offences. 

Inspector McMenamin said for the Western Region infringement numbers for speeding and seat belt offences decreased but positive alcohol increased. 

“While it’s good to see numbers are going down, the 517 speeding infringement notices issues are still to high, there’s still to many people speeding. 

“As were the 25 people that were detected for not using seatbelts and the seven using mobile phones, those are offences we’d like to see at zero if possible so obviously that’s quite disappointing.”

There were 14,500 breath tests conducted across the Western Region. 

“Thirty-one people were charged with alcohol related offences, that’s an increase of seven from last year, a significant increase which is obviously very disappointing. 

Inspector McMenamin said the same amount of police were rostered-on as previous years. The operation involved a double demerit system and came after the recently introduced new penalties for using mobile phones while driving.

“It’s a little bit hard to judge on whether double demerits and extra fines have impacted on that, it’s not something we generally keep all the specific data on, while I know there were seven issued this weekend, I haven’t got the figures to compare for last year,” Insp. McMenamin said.

“Talking to general motorists and police on the weekend it is definitely something that’s had everyone’s attention and they’re talking about so just the fact then that the awareness of it has been raised is a good thing.”

There were no fatalities recorded on Western Region roads during the weekend.

"It was good to get through the weekend obviously without any fatalities, we have had a slight reduction in people that were seriously injured in crashes, once again a good thing to see,” Insp. McMenamin said.  

We did have some some serious injury crashes and that’s obviously something we’d like to get through, a weekend of having zero, because the impact to families and everyone involved is obviously quite significant.”

While Inspector McMenamin said he thought the operation was a success in the Western Region because of the reduction in offences and “the weekend was fatality free”, there were still issues on the roads. 

“There was still a lot of significant issues with very big speeds being detected, and people losing their licences specifically from that.

“Speeds were detected in the 170s and 180s in some of our major highways which is quite crazy and dangerous,” he said.

“We had one instance in the North West where a lady was detected as drink driving twice in the same night.”

Beyond the operation, NSW Police are preparing for the next busy period on NSW roads.

“We’re just looking forward and maintaining our focus on road safety and having people move through the region safely as we move towards Christmas and the busy period again,” Insp. McMenamin said. 

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