NSW Police nab two more heavy vehicles for high-level speeding, and vows to keep on targeting lead-foot truck drivers
September 12, 2013
New South Wales Police has added two more scalps to its list as part of its crackdown on high-level speeding in the trucking industry and has vowed to keep on targeting lead-foot drivers.
Highway patrol officers caught the first truck on September 9 on the Hume Highway at Jugiong travelling at 124km/h. The second incident happened in the same region a day later when officers detected the B-double hitting 122km/h.
Both drivers received infringement notices for exceeding the speed limit by more than 20km/h, while the two trucks were issued with a major defect and escorted to a checking station for further inspection.
“The Roads and Maritime Service have now been contacted to mechanically inspect both trucks and to conduct a speed audits of the fleets involved to determine whether or not any further action needs to be taken against each operator,” NSW Police Superintendent Stuart Smith says.
“The joint heavy vehicle taskforce will continue to target speeding across the industry, and will also continue to publicise such outcomes in the media in our joint efforts to reduce speeding for the benefit of road safety for all road users in NSW.”
The latest speeding incidents come only days after police pulled over three trucks in the space of 24 hours for speeding along the same section of the Newell Highway in northern NSW.
All three trucks were travelling in excess of 120km/h, and police handed each driver an infringement notice and grounded their rigs pending an inspection of their speed limiters.
Meanwhile, NSW Police is reminding all motorists to obey the law in relation to mobile phones and speed limits, after Operation Compliance detected more than 800 drivers using their phone or speeding through school zones.
The statewide compliance blitz, which ran for one day on September 11, focused on mobile phone, seatbelt and school zone offences on major highways and suburban roads.
Smith says some drivers still broke the law even though they were made aware of the operation.
“Traffic and highway patrol officers took action against 1,893 drivers for offences including the improper use of mobile phones, not wearing seatbelts, and speeding through school zones. These drivers were given a fair warning that we would be out in force yet some still took risks on the roads,” he says.
“It is wrong on so many levels to see over 800 drivers detected using mobile phones or speeding through school zones. This is an area of the road where drivers should be giving more than 100 per cent, but were instead distracted and not obeying the law. They put those children coming to and from school at serious risk of being injured in a crash.”
Over the course of the day, officers stopped 773 drivers for the improper use of mobile phones, with 247 of these offences committed in the central metropolitan area.
Police further detected 807 school zone offences including motorists talking on a mobile phone or speeding through a school zone area.
Police also stopped 313 drivers for seatbelt offences, with 73 of these committed in the central metropolitan area and 59 in north-west Sydney.
