LOCAL police are hoping to buck what’s been a “devastating” year on our roads throughout a festive season crackdown of reckless drivers in the region.

Operation Roadwise kicked off on Friday and will run until the new year in an extended 20-day period which will see police highly visible across the state’s major roads and arterials.

Senior Sergeant David Gillespie of Wangaratta Highway Patrol said there will be a significant focus on impaired driving, with police conducting widespread alcohol and drug testing every day throughout the operation.

“We want people to enjoy the festive season this year, but if you’re going to have a few drinks, have a designated driver, don’t run the gauntlet of thinking you can have a couple of drinks and think you’ll be ok,” he said.

“Drug driving continues to be a real issue; our testing rates are continuing to increase and unfortunately, we are still seeing a lot of people driving cars with drugs in their system.

“Not only does it impact your driver behaviour and your reaction times, but it is illegal, you can’t do it.

“We have a lot of people coming to North East Victoria for obvious reasons this month, but that influx of traffic increases volume on our roads.

“The whole idea is to really make sure people are going to get to their destination safely.

“If police identify people breaking the road rules, expect to be pulled over, expect to be drug and alcohol tested and expect to be spoken to.”

Police data shows December is the worst month of the year for drink drive offending, recording the highest number of drink driving detections and most collisions where the driver was over the blood alcohol limit.

Snr Sgt Gillespie said there have been 18 people who have lost their lives on North East roads so far this year and 162 people injured.

“The community might be shocked to be aware we’ve had the same number of fatal collisions this year than we did last year,” he said.

“We’ve had less people killed which is fortunate, but it’s the same themes we’re seeing, in relation to impairment, speed, fatigue, seatbelts and phones.

“Another thing we’ve seen this year which is continuing to recur is speed; a lot of people think doing just a little bit over will get them there five to 10 minutes earlier.

“That little bit over is what we’re seeing trend in our road trauma.

“As a community we’re making the same mistakes as we did last year and there’s 18 people who aren’t going to be at the Christmas dinner table this year.”

During an 18-day holiday season operation last year, police detected 509 offences throughout the Wangaratta PSA which includes the Alpine Shire - a 50 per cent increase in total road offences on the previous year.

Snr Sergeant Gillespie said police resources will be bolstered throughout the operation with booze buses, heavy vehicle unit operatives and additional police members.

“We can’t tolerate risky road user behaviours at this time of year, the safety impacts on all of us as a whole is unacceptable,” he said.

“Our approach is anywhere, anytime and we’re going to make sure we’re going to patrol all of those major arterial roads but also the places you’d least expect to see us.”

For more information and tips for staying safe on the roads during the festive period visit the Road Safety page on the Victoria Police website.