Nearly 8000 People Were Caught Speeding In NSW Alone This Long Weekend

8000. People. That’s a lot of demerit points, and a lot of fines. But also, f**k: that’s a lot of speeding cars out there. Slow down, people.

NSW Police’s Operation Tortoise caught 7687 offenders over the five-day double demerit period.

Some standout idiocy: a 31-year old man travelling 119km/h in a 70km/h zone in Merrylands West. An 18-year old P-plater doing 170km/h in a 90 zone on the M4. A 27-year old doing 157km/h in a 70 zone in Bankstown, who allegedly failed to stop when directed by police.

Idiots.

Four people died on NSW roads over the long weekend. There were 321 major crashes and 323 crashes where police were called to attend. Nearly 250,000 random breath tests were conducted. No figures on how many mobile drug tests were conducted in the same period.

Seriously though, don’t speed. It’s moronic. Not because speeding isn’t safe in and of itself, but because there are other people on the road. You don’t know what they’re doing, how good a driver they are, and you can’t predict their actions. Save your speeding for a place where it’s legal — go to Eastern Creek or down to Wakefield near Goulburn. It’s more fun anyway.

I for one had exactly zero opportunity to speed over the long weekend, because I was either driving through a road work zone or stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic. I guess that’s one solution to the problem.


The Cheapest NBN 50 Plans

It’s the most popular NBN speed in Australia for a reason. Here are the cheapest plans available.

At Gizmodo, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.