Police have praised Maitland drivers after the number of offences during Operation Compliance were low compared to elsewhere in the state.
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The traffic operation ran last Wednesday and involved traffic and highway patrol officers working alongside local police to stop drivers for mobile phone, school zone and seatbelt offences.
The Hunter Lakes cluster recorded 128 offences, with the largest percentage of those for mobile phones and school zone infringements.
Central Hunter recorded just 10 of those offences, which included nine school zone infringements and one mobile phone offence.
Highway patrol Hunter Lakes cluster Acting Senior Sergeant Glen Duggan said the operation was important to ensure the well-being of young people.
“Children are the most vulnerable people in your local area,” he said.
“With young children in school zones as well you only need a split second, usually you have kids getting excited either going to school or going home from school.”
Senior Sergeant Duggan said the operation had been successful in increasing police visibility.
“We were happy, the idea of the operation was to increase the profile in those zones,” he said.
“We need to increase that awareness for the dangers of driving in school zones.”
More than 1000 people were detected breaking the law in school zones during the operation across NSW.
NSW Police traffic and highway patrol commander Assistant Commissioner John Hartley said drivers still took risks.
“Our focus in school zones is about making sure that children, parents, teachers and support staff all get to and from school safely every day, to have drivers double parking, speeding or using phones whilst driving in school zones poses a significant threat to safety,” he said.
“We know that mobile phone use while driving is a key risk behaviour for road users, however, amazingly we detected more than 900 drivers on their mobile phones yesterday.
“Similarly with seat belts, it is a fairly simple task and a key to safety to put on a seat belt, however officers still intercepted over 300 motorists not wearing one.”
Operation compliance
Total NSW offences:
School zone (including speeding) 1023
Mobile Phones 934
Seatbelt 304
Central Hunter:
School zone (including speeding) 9
Mobile phones 1
Seatbelt 0