Police have detected close to 5,000 traffic offences during a major road safety blitz over the Labour Day long weekend in Victoria.
Operation Arid saw police targeting high-risk driving behaviour across the state over four days, in an effort to drive down road trauma.
Speeding offences made up almost half of all detections, with 75 per cent of drivers caught speeding between 10km/h and 25km/h over the speed limit.
Police conducted 69,166 preliminary breath tests, with one in every 455 motorists tested caught drink driving.
A further 197 drivers returned a positive roadside drug test, with 4,266 roadside drug tests conducted.
Over 300 drivers who shouldn't be on the road because they were either unlicensed, disqualified or suspended from driving were caught over the four days.
Police also issued 227 infringements to motorists for disobeying traffic signs or signals, 145 for mobile offences, and 99 for seatbelt noncompliance.
The total 4,952 offences detected during Operation Arid included:
• 2,330 speeding offences
• 227 disobey signs/signals
• 197 drug driving offences from 4,226 roadside drug tests
• 173 unlicenced drivers
• 152 drink driving offences from 69,166 preliminary breath tests
• 145 mobile phone offences
• 133 disqualified/suspended drivers
• 99 seat belt offences
• 80 vehicle impounds; and
• 470 unregistered vehicles
There were two fatal collisions over the weekend, including a single-vehicle collision at Buffalo River, and a two-vehicle collision on the Western Highway at Buangor, both on Saturday.
A total 61 lives have been lost on Victorian roads this year, up from 58 at the same time last year.
Police are reminding motorists they will continue to be out enforcing anywhere, anytime across the state's roads this month, with March considered the most dangerous period on Victorian roads.
Injury collisions in both metropolitan Melbourne and regional Victoria have historically peaked during March, with 30 fatalities recorded during March 2024 - the highest since 34 were recorded in 2011.
Operation Arid ran from 0001 hours on Friday 7 March until 2359 hours on Monday 10 March 2025.
Quotes attributable to Road Policing Acting Assistant Commissioner, David Byrt:
"While the majority of drivers were doing the right thing and driving safely over the long weekend, disappointingly we continue to detect far too many motorists disregarding the road rules.
"Speeding even a little bit over the limit significantly increases your risk of being involved in road trauma, and yet the majority of those we caught speeding this weekend were considerably over the limit.
"We will continue to have zero tolerance for those who blatantly choose to speed on our roads - this behaviour puts not only the driver at risk of a collision, but all other road users.
"Collisions involving speed have historically been at their highest during March, so we need motorists to take their foot off the accelerator, slow down and stick to the speed limit.
"During this high-risk month of March, police will continue to have a major presence on roads across the state - we are doing everything we can to drive down trauma on our roads."
