Reckless drivers have pushed Dubbo and other areas of the Central West to be among the state's worst in terms of motorists driving with disqualified licences, or getting behind the wheel without one at all.
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Last year's Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research leaderboards reveal Dubbo rated in the top 20 worst regional areas of NSW for the number of infringements issued for the former offence, ranking equal 10th.
There was 246 infringements handed out last year to drivers with suspended or disqualified licences and another 260 were caught driving without any form of licence, on top of that BOCSAR recorded another 545 general licence-based offences in Dubbo.
Comparable centres across the Central West like Bathurst and Orange were slightly lower on the list.
Bathurst sat 15th, three ranks above Orange, with substantially lower numbers than Dubbo.
Compared to Dubbo's whopping total of 1,045 licence-based offences, there was 884 in Bathurst and 503 in Orange.
Breaking Dubbo's total down to population size and offences per person, the city was almost five times worse than Newcastle and almost six times worse than Wollongong.
Dubbo also sat the highest of any Central West area in terms of drink-driving as well, BOCSAR ranked the area 14th among regional local government areas with 176 offences, 40 of which were high-range.
Bathurst was just outside the top 20 with 137 while Orange (129), the Mudgee area (98) and Lithgow (77) were further down the list.
NSW Police's North West Region Traffic Coordinator, Sergeant Kelly Wix, has previously said how important it is to have a big presence on the roads in the region, to try and combat dangerous driving.
"Having a high visibility presence on our roads provides an immediate check for drivers to moderate their behaviour and comply with the road rules - we want people to get where they need to be safely," she said.
In both drink driving and licence offences, according to the BOCSAR statistics, the numbers in all three areas have largely increased from 2019 to 2020.
A total of 28 more drink driving offences and 29 more licence-based offences were recorded in Orange, with similar increases in Bathurst. While the number of drink driving offences increased by 30 in Dubbo, however, the total of licence-based offences declined marginally.
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Matt Findlay
Formerly a sports specialist, I'm based at Orange and shift between wide-spread range of subjects here and, often, across the entire Central West region of NSW as well. I have almost a decade of experience in the media and marketing industries both here in Australia and internationally, along with journalism I have experience in content strategy, brand development, and digital and social media. Along the way, I've been fortunate to win a handful of media awards and be nominated for several others too.
Formerly a sports specialist, I'm based at Orange and shift between wide-spread range of subjects here and, often, across the entire Central West region of NSW as well. I have almost a decade of experience in the media and marketing industries both here in Australia and internationally, along with journalism I have experience in content strategy, brand development, and digital and social media. Along the way, I've been fortunate to win a handful of media awards and be nominated for several others too.
