Police round up hoons

By Bridget Cook
CASEY’S top cop has said that recent statistics which revealed the City of Casey as the state’s worst hoon hotspot was a reflection of local police’s enforcement activity.
This week police released the top 20 suburbs showing where Victoria’s drink drivers, speeding motorists and mobile phone offenders live from the 2009-2010 financial year.
Cranbourne had a shameful trifecta, topping the list for speeding offenders with 2030 caught, second for drink driving offences with 132 and fourth for mobile phone offenders with 607 caught.
Narre Warren and Berwick also featured prominently in all three lists, with Narre Warren coming in a close second for speeding offenders and Berwick fourth.
The data also named Casey Police Service Area (PSA) as the second highest at risk area for road trauma.
Casey PSA Inspector Andrew Miles said the high statistics showed that local police were catching those doing the wrong thing.
“I can’t say drivers in Casey are any worse that in other areas of the state,” he said.
“But I can say that we have put a significant effort into enforcement in the area and the data released is a reflection of our enforcement activity.”
Insp Miles said police had put a focus on targeting the locations of fatal and serious injury collisions in the area.
“We have particularly been enforcing in those areas where we identified that there were problems,” he said.
“Some of the major factors which cause collisions are speed, drink driving and people talking on their mobile phones while driving.
“The statistics show that we have been enforcing in these area.”
Insp Miles said Casey police had also been running a number of operations in the area to crack down on driving offences including Operation CARE, Operation Ardent and Operation Quattro.
“We continually have operations going and we will continue to maintain that,” he said.
“My message to Casey drivers is, if you speed, drink drive or talk on your mobile phone while driving, there’s a very good chance you will get caught.
“We are committed to further reducing the number of serious injury and fatal collisions in Casey.”
Head of Road Policing Deputy Commissioner Kieran Walshe said it was frustrating to see so many areas feature in all three lists.
“Cranbourne features in the top four of each of these lists and this absolutely unacceptable,” he said.
“The wider Casey area is the number two area most at risk for road trauma and these results prove that a lot of this has to do with the attitude of drivers in this area.
“The message from us today is that people in these areas need to change their attitude and change their behaviour.
“Police have a number of large scale blitz operations planned over coming months – and listed areas should expect to be targeted.”