During the cooler winter months, the number of visitors to Burketown significantly increases with caravaners and holiday makers coming to visit this part of the region.
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This has a large impact on the volume of vehicles travelling on the roads.
With this in mind, the month of July saw Police Officers from Burketown conduct road safety operation called ‘Get home safe.’
It was an initiative which aimed to reduce crashes and casualties on Burketown roads and ensure everyone got to their intended destination safely.
Police conducted a number of vehicle intercepts and performed roadside breath tests, licence checks and registration checks.
They also spoke to drivers and offered advice about road safety.
Some of the offences detected were drink drivers, driving unregistered vehicles and learner driver not accompanied.
There were 10 charges laid in all.
Additionally, traffic and liquor infringement notices were issued accordingly.
Police were most concerned to detect a 38-year-old male learner driver, driving a vehicle a short distance from Burketown State School at 3pm on a weekday whilst nearly 5 times over the alcohol limit.
The man was due to appear in Doomadgee Magistrates Court on Wednesday August 8 for high range drink driving in addition to a number of other traffic matters.
At the commencement of the operation, police recorded a staggering 17 percent of the interactions they had with drivers identified offences were been committed.
This drastically reduced to 3 percent during the second phase of the operation.
Police feel an increase in community awareness and education during the operation are to thank for this and are continually urging drivers to do the right thing and ‘Get home safe.’