It’s 7pm on Saturday and drink-driving blitz Operation Cover is in full swing.
Four booze buses have been set up along some of Wyndham’s main arterial roads – including Heaths and Ballan roads, William Thwaites Drive, and the Derrimut Road underpass.
There’s roving police driving around Wyndham’s residential streets and PAD dogs on hand for situations in which drugs may be involved.
About 40 police officers from across Westgate Highway Patrol, the uniform branch and the divisional response unit are taking part in the eight-hour operation.
Wyndham police Acting Inspector Peter Bitton said the operation was all about making Wyndham roads safe for locals.
Eight people have died this year in road collisions across the Westgate division, which comprises Wyndham, Maribyrnong and Hobsons Bay; 78 people have been seriously injured.
My chaperone for the night, Sergeant Marty Wallace from Westgate Highway Patrol, first takes me to the booze bus along William Thwaites Drive in Cocoroc, across from the Werribee Recycled Water Plant. For the next four hours, the Princes Freeway entrance is blocked and all drivers heading down this stretch are subjected to random breath tests.
Police are also doing registration checks to detect any unregistered cars, unlicensed drivers and outstanding warrants.
Surprisingly – and pleasingly – it’s not until after 8pm that the first positive reading is returned.
The male driver is telling police he’s only had Dr Pepper to drink when he returns a blood alcohol reading more than 0.07. Sergeant Wallace gets in the man’s car to move it to the side of the road and finds a small zip-lock bag of cannabis in the centre console.
“You could smell it,” he says later.
The driver is taken inside the booze bus where he’ll have to wait 15 minutes before undergoing a secondary, evidentiary breath test. He’ll also take an oral fluid test, which can detect the presence of ice, methamphetamines and cannabis in a person’s system.
Senior Constable Lyn Taylor, who is running this booze bus, said that despite being over the limit in preliminary breath tests, drivers still proclaimed their innocence while waiting to take the evidentiary test.
We head over to the booze buses on Ballan and Heaths roads, where no positive breath tests have been returned as yet.
On average, the strike rate for drink-driving is one positive reading for every few hundred random breath tests, but it’s drug drivers that are the big concern.
Over at the Derrimut Road booze bus, a car is being towed away after its driver returned a blood-alcohol reading above 0.15.
The 26-year-old Deer Park man, whose car has been impounded for 30 days, was also fined $674, had his licence cancelled and was disqualified for 11 months.
Further inquiries revealed the man was wanted for an outstanding breach of an intervention order, so he was subsequently arrested and interviewed before going before a magistrate, where he was remanded in custody.
At 10pm, the booze buses switch to another four locations – at the Princes Highway Hoppers Crossing freeway entry point, at the corner of Leakes Road and Banfield Court in Truganina, and two along each side of Heaths Road, opposite Mossfiel Reserve.
The buses spend the next four hours conducting random breath tests at these sites.
Overall, police conduct 2790 preliminary breath tests for Operation Cover, with 13 motorists recording readings above 0.05. Another five are arrested for possessing a drug of dependence and 11 people will be summonsed to court at a later date for driving offences.
Three cars were impounded for driving offences, three were issued with defect notices for not being roadworthy and 21 fines were issued to drivers for other traffic matters, including unregistered vehicles and overloading.
Acting Inspector Bitton called on people to plan ahead and arrange alternative transport if they’re planning to have a drink.
“It is unbelievable that with all the information people have about the dangers of drink- and drug-driving today, that some still make the conscious decision to drive under the influence,” he said.
“If you have used drugs, don’t drive.”
