Only one motorist was caught driving under the influence of alcohol out of the 2,156 preliminary breath tests conducted by Northern Grampians police at the Easter long weekend.
It was the only reported incident on the region’s roads at a notorious time for drunken drivers.
Tasking and Coordinating Senior Sergeant for the Western Region Division Four Dianne Thomson said the statistics reflected a concentrated focus on road policing in the Northern Grampians district.
“We did not have one call for any road accidents or fatalities which is fabulous,” she said.
The Northern Grampians area was the highest achieving division in four policing performance categories, offences, shifts, members and patrol hours per full time employee.
Over the Easter period 132 members were involved in 89 shifts for a total patrol time of 555 hours.
The division was ranked second in the total of preliminary breath tests conducted.
Division Four Senior Sergeant Thomson said the figures were “fabulous” for the smallest division in Western Victoria.
“The Western Region has six divisions and the Northern Grampians district has done extremely well,” she said.
“With the amount of extra people that come into the area for Easter activities like the rodeo, Stawell races and the Stawell Gift, these numbers are really encouraging.”
Senior Sergeant Thomson said the general public deserved to be praised for their efforts.
“A big thank you must go out to the community for cooperating and responding well to our warnings,” she said.
“We have provided warnings about the trauma that comes as a result of distracted driving and it is good to see those messages are hitting home.”
These figures followed a near incident-free long weekend at Stawell after an additional five thousand people piled into the town for the Gift sporting carnival.
