The New South Wales road toll increased by two-thirds this Christmas and New Year holiday period compared to 12 months prior, while police had a busy time issuing double demerit penalties.
From 12:01am Friday, December 20, 2024 until 11:59pm Wednesday, January 1, 2025, New South Wales Police ran Operation Christmas/New Year 2024, which enforced double demerits for speeding, mobile phone, seatbelt, and motorcycle helmet offences.
Across the 13-day period, 10 road users died in the state, four more than the six deaths recorded in the final weeks of 2023. A total of 1009 major crashes were also attended across the 13 days.
While the double demerit period ran for a shorter amount of time to close 2023 and start 2024 (December 22 to January 1), deaths per day increased from an average of 0.55 to 0.77 year-on-year.
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NSW Police said Operation Christmas/New Year 2024 wrapped up with officers issuing a total of 9719 speed infringements, returning 1725 positive roadside drug detections, and 720 drink-driving charges off the back of 438,328 breath tests.
Acting Assistant Commissioner Tracey Chapman, Commander of Traffic and Highway Patrol Command, condemned those who were caught doing the wrong thing during the operation.
“We have seen an increase in dangerous drivers, with some of the highest numbers of speeding and drink driving offences being detected during this festive period,” said Acting Assistant Commissioner Chapman in a media statement.
“Many of these drivers will accuse police of ruining their fun during the Christmas and New Year period, but these drivers have chosen to disobey the road rules, they have chosen to put other motorists at risk.”
“Police aren’t going to stop going after these drivers, so it is up to them to change their actions or get caught. Over 1700 drivers were detected driving with the presence of drugs in their system, close to 10,000 were speeding. These aren’t the numbers we want to see.
“I continue to urge all drivers and passengers that if you see dangerous driving to contact police and keep our roads safe.
The staggering number of positive roadside drug detections comes after a major policy change in September 2024, when a new law was introduced to grant NSW Police officers more power to arrest alleged drug drivers on the spot.
Motorists who return a positive roadside oral test for drugs can be placed under arrest, instead of needing to be taken to a police station or nearby testing bus.
The first test is sent to a lab for analysis while a second on-the-spot test is conducted and, if this returns a positive result as well, the motorist is banned from driving for the next 24 hours.
It’s worth noting the presence of alcohol in a motorist’s system isn’t itself an offence, unless it reaches a prescribed legal limit, however it’s an offence for a motorist to have any amount of illegal drugs like cocaine in their system – which likely attributed to the far higher number of drug-driving charges over drink-driving.
Regardless of the change in policy, the 10 deaths on the state’s roads to close out the year came after the New South Wales road toll between December 2023 to November 2024 had already increased by 4.5 per cent compared to the 12 months prior.
Australia’s overall road toll across the same 12-month period was up by 6.1 per cent, with 1318 deaths recorded. Full-year figures for 2024 are expected in the coming days.
