There have been 80 road fa­tal­i­ties for the year, so far.

The Po­lice Ser­vice’s Road Safe­ty Co­or­di­na­tor, Sergeant Brent Bat­son, con­firmed the to­tal thus far, not­ing it rep­re­sents five more deaths than those record­ed at the end of 2021.

And Sgt Bat­son says the pub­lic can ex­pect a greater po­lice pres­ence on the road­ways.

“Be­cause we have ad­di­tion­al fleets, you all will see a high­er po­lice pres­ence, to­geth­er with the ac­qui­si­tion of the elec­tron­ic tick­ets and de­vices,” he said.  “So, I can as­sure the pub­lic that you will see a ma­jor in­ter­ven­tion by the po­lice on the road polic­ing side.”

  But this bat­tle cry will have to con­tin­ue un­for­tu­nate­ly, un­til peo­ple re­alise that we have to charge you and bring you be­fore the court, is that the ac­tion?”

Sgt Bat­son the po­lice will not let up un­til be­hav­iour on the road­ways im­proves.  In ad­di­tion, he is urg­ing the pub­lic to use the TTPS’ 999 hot­line num­ber to re­port law­less dri­vers. 

“When you see a dan­ger­ous dri­ver on the road, that’s a threat to pub­lic safe­ty,” Sgt Bat­son as­sert­ed.  “That’s what 999 is for, as well.”

He added: “So don’t think it’s just for [cer­tain kinds of] crime.  [Dan­ger­ous dri­ving], we call that road crime. They’re en­dan­ger­ing per­sons’ pub­lic safe­ty.”

The TTPS Road Safe­ty Co­or­di­na­tor point­ed to one in­stance were dri­vers on the road who had ex­pe­ri­enced dan­ger­ous dri­ving called 999, and the High­way Pa­trol was able to in­ter­cept the ve­hi­cles re­spon­si­ble for that par­tic­u­lar dan­ger­ous dri­ving in­ci­dent and deal with them.