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Roll the clock back 12 months and this time last year, Canberra’s quickest and most important link to NSW South Coast was closed and the holiday travel plans of thousands of ACT and regional holidaymakers were in chaos. In December 2019 the two big Currowan and Tianjara bushfires had joined into a single firefront stretching 80 kilometres from just north of Batemans Bay and almost to Nowra. Those that had made it to the coast were in fear of the days ahead, and those who had planned to go were unpacking their bags. Fast forward to the summer of 2020 and around the ACT, preparations have begun to a return to what was once holiday normality during the festive season. And with it will come what police expect will be a huge volume of holiday traffic over the Christmas-New Year period, with Canberrans eager to escape long months of COVID restrictions and working from home. International travel is off the agenda so for many the alternative will be a holiday close to home and will involve a road trip there and back. The application of double demerits for speeding, seatbelt, mobile phone and motorcycle helmet offences. begin at midnight on Wednesday for motorists in the ACT and NSW. The double demerits period will continue until January 3. After a very different summer of policing the roads last year, the ACT’s officer in charge of Traffic Operations, Detective Inspector Marcus Boorman, said he expected everybody “will be very eager to get where they want to go” these holidays, and that’s when the problems often start. “It’s about taking your time [and] planning your trip; there will be a large volume of traffic and with the COVID issues still around, people will be more stressed than usual,” he said. “Be patient and be courteous to each other and we will all enjoy the festive season.” All his sworn staff are on traffic duty through the holiday season and with no Summernats scheduled early in the New Year, that takes a little of the pressure off patrolling the northern and city areas and allows more policing resources to be redirected onto highways and arterial roads. Despite eight months of COVID restrictions and near-empty ACT roads as people worked from home, the ACT road toll is already higher than for the full calendar year of 2019. Seven people have died on Canberra’s roads so far this year and two more very recently in our immediate regional area. On Sunday a man died when his Toyota Hilux ute crashed off the road near Grabben Gullen, north-west of Goulburn, and on Monday a 73-year-old man died when his car hit a tree on Wallaroo Road, off the Barton Highway just west of the ACT border. Inspector Boorman said that driver fatigue and drink-driving are persistent and high risk issues at this time of year. He flagged an increase in random breath testing over the next few weeks, and said that if people offend on the road “there will be consequences”.
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Roll the clock back 12 months and this time last year, Canberra’s quickest and most important link to NSW South Coast was closed and the holiday travel plans of thousands of ACT and regional holidaymakers were in chaos.
In December 2019 the two big Currowan and Tianjara bushfires had joined into a single firefront stretching 80 kilometres from just north of Batemans Bay and almost to Nowra.
Those that had made it to the coast were in fear of the days ahead, and those who had planned to go were unpacking their bags.
Fast forward to the summer of 2020 and around the ACT, preparations have begun to a return to what was once holiday normality during the festive season.
The ACT’s newest and most sophisticated traffic cars will be patrolling this summer.
Picture: Karleen Minney
And with it will come what police expect will be a huge volume of holiday traffic over the Christmas-New Year period, with Canberrans eager to escape long months of COVID restrictions and working from home.
International travel is off the agenda so for many the alternative will be a holiday close to home and will involve a road trip there and back.
The application of double demerits for speeding, seatbelt, mobile phone and motorcycle helmet offences. begin at midnight on Wednesday for motorists in the ACT and NSW. The double demerits period will continue until January 3.
After a very different summer of policing the roads last year, the ACT’s officer in charge of Traffic Operations, Detective Inspector Marcus Boorman, said he expected everybody “will be very eager to get where they want to go” these holidays, and that’s when the problems often start.
“It’s about taking your time [and] planning your trip; there will be a large volume of traffic and with the COVID issues still around, people will be more stressed than usual,” he said.
“Be patient and be courteous to each other and we will all enjoy the festive season.”
ACT Policing’s new BMW X3 traffic patrol car. Picture: Karleen Minney
All his sworn staff are on traffic duty through the holiday season and with no Summernats scheduled early in the New Year, that takes a little of the pressure off patrolling the northern and city areas and allows more policing resources to be redirected onto highways and arterial roads.
Despite eight months of COVID restrictions and near-empty ACT roads as people worked from home, the ACT road toll is already higher than for the full calendar year of 2019.
Seven people have died on Canberra’s roads so far this year and two more very recently in our immediate regional area.
On Sunday a man died when his Toyota Hilux ute crashed off the road near Grabben Gullen, north-west of Goulburn, and on Monday a 73-year-old man died when his car hit a tree on Wallaroo Road, off the Barton Highway just west of the ACT border.
Inspector Boorman said that driver fatigue and drink-driving are persistent and high risk issues at this time of year. He flagged an increase in random breath testing over the next few weeks, and said that if people offend on the road “there will be consequences”.
