Need for speed

By Bridget Cook
CRANBOURNE has the most speeding drivers in Victoria – and it seems some are proud to wear that title.
An A Current Affair (ACA) investigation on Monday night revealed that drivers from Cranbourne had been booked for speeding related offences more than any others in the state.
The figures, obtained by ACA through Freedom of Information, revealed that according to police Cranbourne drivers had recorded about 20,220 speeding offences in the past year – that’s $3 million in fines – with Narre Warren coming in fifth.
ACA reporter Martin King visited Cranbourne and spoke to some local residents who admitted on-air they were proud of the title and it was all just a bit of fun – something local police have slammed.
Casey Highway Patrol Acting Senior Sergeant Scott Roberts said he was ashamed of those types of people.
“They are obviously not the ones picking up the pieces when these drivers come unstuck,” he said.
“They don’t give a toss about people other than themselves. All these behaviours are purely selfish.
“They’re not the types of individuals who only commit speeding offences, but would also break many other laws.
“It’s just a case of when they get caught for those people.
“It’s not behaviour we condone in any way, shape or form, and people need to realise the consequences.”
Acting Sen Sgt Roberts said the figures did not necessarily reflect that Cranbourne had more speeding drivers than anywhere else – just the fact that more were getting caught.
“There’s no doubt that a vast majority of the speeding drivers are being detected in Casey,” he said.
“It goes to show that we have got a very pro-active workforce that are getting amongst it and taking a hard line when it comes to speeding drivers.
“Speed cameras are also placed in high-risk areas, where we know there’s a high amount of speeding behaviour. These cameras are obviously detecting those drivers and that reflects that we are doing our job and taking a real hard line as far as speeding is concerned.
“Speeders account for a lot of the road trauma and the message out of this is that the enforcements we are using to catch those people are very good.”
The News asked our Facebook followers if they had experienced speeding and hoon behaviour in their suburb.
“Yep it’s constant in that area (Cranbourne). Nothing to be proud of. It’s disgusting,” said Jude Tope.
Cranbourne North resident Lisa Adomeit said she could often hear hoons.
“This is a terrible area for hoons,” she said.
“Hence burn-outs in my street and hoon hotline signs on light poles.”
Judy Davis said unfortunately there were hoons in Cranbourne, but she didn’t believe it was any worse than other Casey suburbs.
“I do think we have a lot of caught speeding drivers in Cranbourne but obviously the police are a lot more active in catching speeding drivers in Cranbourne than a lot of other towns,” she said.
“Come on everyone, how about being honest and telling us how many times you have been speeding but not been caught. Even one km/h over the speed limit is speeding.”