This Christmas, it won\u2019t be a question of which rural road in NSW police will be on, but when they will be on it.
\nOperation Safe Arrival, the Christmas\/New Year road safety-enforcement operation, starts at 12.01am on Friday 21 December 2018 and concludes at 11.59pm on Tuesday 1 January 2019.
\nDouble demerits will be in force throughout the period for speeding, seatbelt, mobile phone and motorcycle helmet offences.
\nAs Friday is a designated school day, an additional demerit point on top of double demerits will also apply to all relevant school zone offences committed on that day.
\nDuring the 2017-2018 Operation Safe Arrival period, 31 lives were lost in 26 fatal crashes on NSW roads. Of the 31 lives lost, 19 were drivers, seven were passengers, two were motorcyclists and three were pedestrians.
\nAbout 42 per cent of fatal crashes during this time occurred between 11am and 5pm.
\nDuring operation Safe Arrival 2017-2018, police conducted 700,200 random breath tests and charged 1585 people with drink driving.
\nTraffic and Highway Patrol Command\u2019s Assistant Commissioner, Michael Corboy, said back roads in rural areas will be a main target for police random breath testing.
\n\u201cWe will be travelling the same roads that you will this Christmas. Your trip is our trip.
\n\u201cIt will be those feeder roads that lead to our major arterial roads such as the Pacific, Newell and Princes highways,\u201c Assistant Commissioner Corboy said.
\n\u201cGenerally over Christmas we have looked at major \u00adthoroughfares getting in and out of Sydney, where a lot of crashes occur.
\n\u201cThis year it won\u2019t be a question of which road will we be on, it will be a matter of when will we be on that stretch of road?\u201d
\nMinister for Roads, Maritime and Freight Mrs Melinda Pavey said while November had the lowest road toll recorded on record (since 1936) it\u2019s important not to become complacent.
\n\u201cIf you\u2019re on the roads this holiday season, I encourage everyone to be their best self behind the wheel, whether you\u2019re driving in the city or travelling in the country, so you can return home to loved ones,\u201d Mrs Pavey said
\nMotorists are also being reminded that from 17 September 2018, an extra demerit point was added to the penalty for illegally using a mobile phone while driving. This will add an additional two demerit points in double demerit periods resulting in a total of 10 demerit points for this offence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This Christmas, it won\u2019t be a question of which rural road in NSW police will be on, but when they will be on it. Operation Safe Arrival, the Christmas\/New Year road safety-enforcement operation, starts at 12.01am on Friday 21 December 2018 and concludes at 11.59pm on Tuesday 1 January 2019. Double demerits will be in … Continue reading “"Your trip is our trip this Christmas" – Operation Safe Arrival begins”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nswnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1100\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}