FRUSTRATED by a spike in dangerous driving on Canberra’s roads, officer in charge of road policing Marcus Boorman says if it doesn’t stop people will die.
“I don’t know what’s causing this driver behaviour, but I do know what the effect will be, someone’s luck will run out and we’ll have a person, or people killed,” says sergeant Boorman.
His concerns come after a string of incidents which saw motorists caught drug driving, drink driving and speeding.
On Thursday (May 14), two vehicles were caught driving 150km/h over the Parkes Way speed limit, with one of them failing a drug test. The next day, Friday, a driver was caught drink driving at 140km/h in an 80 zone in Fyshwick. His licence was suspended.
Then, on Sunday, a 19-year-old was driving drunk when he collided into a house in Kambah at 3am, at 4.15pm another car rolled several times on the Federal Highway, sending the driver to hopsital, at 7.30pm a ute rear-ended another vehicle on the Monaro Highway. The driver failed a breath test, and was allegedly using his mobile phone.
This morning, Mr Boorman says, in less than one hour, four drivers were detected exceeding the speed limit by more than 20 kilometres an hour including a provisional driver who was detected at 132 km/h in the 80 zone. Another driver was issued with an infringement for running a red light, while a marked police vehicle was stationary at the intersection.
“Police are seeing so many drivers doing the wrong thing,” he says.
“It shouldn’t take the threat of being caught to make people do the right thing, because these people are, simply, risking lives. This behaviour has to stop.”
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