A joint operation between police and sheriff officers in Altona Meadows netted $385,000 in unpaid fines in one day.
Forty members of the Hobsons Bay highway patrol and Sheriff’s Office began setting up on the corner of Hall Avenue and Merton Street about 9am last Thursday, waving cars into the Laverton Football Club carpark.
The officers were using an automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) camera, and scanning the number plates of almost every passing car to check for disqualified or unlicensed drivers, unregistered or stolen vehicles, and vehicles with outstanding warrants attached.
Sergeant Aaron Prentice-Evans, who was co-ordinating Operation Wyatt, said an ANPR camera was placed in Merton Street and flagged vehicles were being called through.
“We’re trying to get the drivers who are over-represented in road trauma, like your disqualifieds, your unlicensed, your alcohol-interlocks, unregistered motor vehicles, suspended drivers,” he said.
“We’re trialling a number of different locations.
“They’ve got different classifications of warrants, but they’ll either have people paying on the spot or they’ll be clamping vehicles today, or issuing people with notices, which means that they’ve got a specified time to pay the outstanding fines or they’ll have their vehicles clamped.”
It was the first time the Merton Street location had been trialled.
Sheriff of Victoria Brendan Facey said that by day’s end, officers had detected 50 people with 1235 warrants owing almost $385,000.’
“On the day, 102 warrants were paid worth $38,279,” he said.
“Eighteen drivers had their vehicles clamped during the operation, which accounted for 343 warrants.”
The previous day, a booze bus operation was held from about 3pm on Millers Road, Altona North. Senior Sergeant Damien Madden said this was to demonstrate that a booze bus could be anywhere, any time.
“We tested all day and had one driver test positive for drugs,” he said. “With regard to drug driving, all highway patrol officers have now been trained and authorised to conduct these tests. This is as a result of extra funding being allocated by the government last year.
Police detected two disqualified drivers, three suspended drivers, five unlicensed drivers, 11 unregistered vehicles, two drivers using a mobile phone, two drivers who failed to stop at a red light, two learner drivers failing to have an experienced driver with them and a P-plater failing to display plates.
Two people were caught driving unsafe vehicles, and eight defect notices were issued.
