Victoria Police's road policing operation for the Christmas and holiday period, Operation Roadwise, concluded last night with over 31,000 traffic offences detected and 23 people sadly losing their lives on our roads in the 24-day period.

Six of those have been in the first week of 2018, and five of those six on country roads.

Operation Roadwise ran for 24 days from 12.01am Friday 15 December 207 to 11.59pm Sunday 7 January 2018.

Last year 14 people died during the same 24-day period.

Assistant Commissioner Doug Fryer is determined that this sad start to the New Year does not continue.

"To lose six people so early in the New Year is nothing short of tragic," he said.

"That's six families for which 2018 has become the worst year of their lives before it has barely started.

"These tragic deaths coupled with the results of our Roadwise Operation are very concerning to police.

"Across the summer period we have seen people engaging in behaviours that are unacceptable and completely inconsistent with keeping safe on the roads.

"Police are out doing our part to enforce the law but I must implore the community to do the right thing in the first place.

"We had over 250 people die on our roads last year, I don't want to see a repeat of that in 2018."

A total of 31,293 offences were detected across Operation Roadwise. This includes:

  • 305 impoundments

  • 3,271 unregistered vehicles

  • 1995 mobile phone offences

  • 1,149 seatbelt offences

  • 1,851 disobey traffic controls (e.g. signs/signals)

  • 10,595 speeding offences

  • 1,504 unlicensed drivers

  • 851 disqualified drivers

  • 784 drug drivers

  • 1,113 drink drivers

  • 417 cyclist offences

The provisional lives lost figure for 2017 is 257.