The Highway Patrol is warning drivers that police will be "saturating" roads around Maitland and the Hunter from now until next year.
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Hunter Highway Patrol Senior Sergeant Tony Grace said the force will receive additional funds from speed camera revenue to increase staff shifts and overtime hours for multiple road operations later this year and into January.
"This is the time of year we really ramp-up," Senior Sergeant Grace said.
"We will be saturating the roads with Highway Patrol. We do as many additional hours as possible.
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"I've told my guys to kiss their wives and kiss their kids because they're not going to see them very much in the next few months."
The additional resources are made available through a partnership between Transport for NSW and NSW Police called the Enhanced Enforcement Program.
Centre for Road Safety executive director Bernard Carlon said the additional funding "enables a significant increase in on-road, high visibility police enforcement which ensures behavioural issues that contribute to road trauma are targeted to a higher degree than would otherwise be possible".
The increased road presence comes after a 45-year-old woman died in a crash on Cessnock Road, Maitland on Friday morning.
Senior Sergeant Grace said the incident served as a reminder for people to take care on the roads, particularly with double demerits from this Friday, the NRL Grand Final on Sunday and the weather warming up.
"We're obviously getting to that time of year that more people are going out," he said. "So we're going to see increased activity on the roads."
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To counteract that, Senior Sergeant Grace listed several road operations police will run from now until 2020.
Operation Chrome kicks off next week, which involves general duties officers teaming up with highway patrol cops to broaden activity on both roads and in the crime space.
There will also be separate operations targeting main highways and local roads, as well as Operation Drink Drive 2 in November, Operation Safe Arrival over Christmas and New Years and Operation Towards Zero targeting drink and drug driving as well.
Double demerits for the Labour Day Long Weekend start on Friday morning and run through to Monday night.
Sage Swinton
Sage Swinton is a news reporter who was born and bred in the Hunter. She has been with the Newcastle Herald since June 2020, and covers Newcastle council as well as other general news.
Sage Swinton is a news reporter who was born and bred in the Hunter. She has been with the Newcastle Herald since June 2020, and covers Newcastle council as well as other general news.
