 The Queensland Police Service is currently undertaking an operation. The operation will be two weeks in length, beginning as of tomorrow, so one minute past midnight on the 14th of February, and the focus of the first week of the operation will be on the use of mobile phones by drivers of motor vehicles, controllers of motor vehicles, and the second week of the operation will be focused on people, road users not wearing seatbelts in motor vehicles. So it's really the first two weeks of a campaign which will extend much longer. The first part of the operation, the first two phases are referred to as operation focus, and operation focus will see a great deal of extra police focusing on the issue of seatbelts and mobile phones. We are aware, of course, that seatbelts and the failure to wear seatbelts is one of the fatal four causes of road death. And of course, with the kickoff to our year, you may be aware that we are sitting now on 31 road deaths, which is five more than for the same period last year. So remember, this is just early stages, and of course, we want to make sure that we can try to check that, and if possible, reverse that trend in motor vehicle deaths across Queensland. So the Motoring Public will see a greater number of police focused on traffic duties over the next couple of weeks for the purposes of making sure that we do all we can to preserve lives through the use of the policing and those two particular offence types. And I'll be happy to take any questions you might have. What sort of targets would you be looking at? Is there a target you're aiming to achieve through the two-week process? Well, really, from an overall perspective, in terms of reducing motor crashes, we say that even one person dying on the roads is too many. So our ultimate aim, of course, and that's quite consistent with the national strategy, is that through a combination of safer roads, safer vehicles, safer speed, safer people, we are saying that we need to move towards a zero death on our road approach. It's going to take some time. It's going to take years, and it's going to require lots of engineering solutions, both at the vehicle level and the road level. It's going to take a lot in terms of driver education. It's going to take a lot in terms of enforcement, and it's going to take a lot in terms of just general overall policing of our road networks. So that's a long-winded way of saying that really no target is a good target. We really want to make sure that we could reduce our road toll so that no one died on our roads. There have been so many blitzes and campaigns. Why do you think they're failing to hit the mark with drivers? Well, I think that in the overall, the campaigns do have a very positive message on the majority of road users. The majority of people that are out using our roads are doing the right thing. The majority of people are not getting drunk and driving their cars. They're not speeding. They are wearing their seatbelts. And, of course, they're not driving their fatigue, and, of course, we know they are our four biggest reasons for road death. But I agree that there is a nub. There is a hardcore group of individual road users out there who thus far appear to be entirely impervious to any of the overtures we make and any of the campaigns that we run. So we have to continue to be as creative as we can. We have to implement enforcement programs that are aimed at this particular group. We would like to think the majority of people are wearing their seatbelts and not using their mobile phones. So this is aimed at those people who completely disregard all the warnings and education and all the common sense that says you should wear a seatbelt and you should never use your mobile phone whilst you're driving. You said you've got to be creative. How do you do that this time? Are you going to employ some different tactics that we haven't seen before? Well, there's a range of enforcement strategies that have been developed. There is a particular range of strategies in terms of the use of mobile phones and seatbelt enforcement. I won't go into what the details of that are at this point, but we are developing from a technical point of view, from an ICT point of view, we're starting to become more sophisticated in how we can not only intercept motor vehicles in relation to those types of fences but also get the evidence we need to substantiate a court challenge at a later time. So that sort of stuff, our technology is enabling our enforcement strategies to change and alter. So we would expect that we will be quite successful in terms of applying that legislation. What sort of funds would be raised for a two-week blitz like this? Obviously there would be money going to the government coffers out of this. Well, there's obviously fines issued as a result of infringements, but that's not something I focus on and that's not something the police department focus on. Our key here is to enforce that legislation in this next two weeks, seatbelts and mobile phones. You know, the ideal position, of course, would be that not one single fine was handed out because nobody would be using their mobile phone and everybody would be wearing a seatbelt. And ideally that's what we're aiming for, that's what we want to achieve. Well, you're running the splits in country areas because don't the figures show that people in country areas are less likely to be killed? Yeah, I don't know about the more likely to be killed, but I think you're right that there's strong anecdotal evidence, at least, to suggest that people in country areas are less likely to wear their seatbelt. Now, a bit of that has got to do with the type of vehicles that are driven, you know, the sort of four-wheel drives, et cetera. These days most of the suburban vehicles getting around the suburban streets have alarms fitted and that will ding and tell you when the seatbelt's not on. Some of the older four-wheel drives, particularly in the country areas, don't have that technology built in as that fleet of motor vehicles moves from, you know, being used to the scrap yards and replaced by vehicles that do sound an alarm, even the four-wheel drives that do sound an alarm. That should, you would like to think, encourage more people to use the seatbelts. Will you be doing this in country areas? And yeah, this is a statewide operation, so it'll be from, you know, from Thursday Island in the north all the way down to the Stanthorpe and all the way out west, so it'll be all our police have been advised about that. Messages have been sent to all our police. We have our strategies for data capture, et cetera, so we'll be looking to see how effective our strategy is, how effective our campaign is. Ideally, over that two-week period, we wouldn't have a single serious or fatal traffic crash, you know, with anybody in the vehicle not wearing a seatbelt or as a result of mobile phone use. And I guess that's probably the reason for sort of publicising this well ahead, letting people know that this is coming, because ideally the key here is to get people to get their seatbelts on and not to use their mobile phones in cars. I think yesterday there was a fatal accident up on the sunny coast being attributed to going to a seatbelt, you know, type of issue. We're certainly investigating that. Yeah, it does. Absolutely. You know, nothing brings it in a sharper focus, I suppose, than the fact that a person is actually killed as a result of not wearing a seatbelt when a life could have been saved but for the application of a seatbelt. And there is a recent traffic crash and we are looking at the extent to which the use of seatbelts or not use of seatbelts has contributed to that accident. We can't be sure, of course, until the end of the investigation, but it's certainly a line of inquiry we're looking at. So I guess if anything underscores the importance of this particular operation, it's when you see a death, you know, two days before the operation is due to kick off. You mentioned that you want to collect the evidence and you're getting a bit smarter about that, so this will stand up in court. Are they going to have police officers with cameras? Do you have, you know, roadside cameras? Are they going to have barbell cameras, cameras on their person? How are you trying to collect this evidence? Well, I'm not going to relate that sort of methodology just yet. It may become obvious as time progresses, but at this stage I won't be, and I'm not limited to divulge any of the pertains to our operational strategies. Is that the message so that, you know, police aren't sort of working outside the box, so to speak, this time around that, you know, you may think you're all right. Well, I think the big key, the big push in all this is that there is, if you're driving around without a seatbelt or using a mobile phone, there is a distinct likelihood of you being intercepted over this two-week period whilst this focus is on. And there is also a distinct likelihood that prosecutions we launch under this campaign will be sustained with very good evidence. The penalties for each of them? $300 in each case, so it's $300 in three points for failing to wear a seatbelt, and it's $300 in three points for using a mobile phone whilst driving a motorcar. What would be a good target that police hit over the two-week period? Would it be 600 captures realistically? What is the target you're hoping to hit? Well, we don't really have a target in mind. We know that, look, there's tens of thousands of seatbelt and mobile phone tickets issued annually in Queensland, so it's a lot of tickets. It's a big number. What we're hoping to do as a result of this is to actually bring that number down. We would like to think that the message is getting out there, that it's being publicised, that people are aware of it, and at least for the next two weeks, at least for the next two weeks, everybody is very conscious of their phone use and the wearing of seatbelts. And with any luck, that sort of habit developed over a couple of weeks just might continue on, and it might be that we don't have to do another one of these operations for some time, and of course, we know there's always a certain amount of maintenance that has to go along with it, but that's the key message. The key message is there's a very distinct likelihood of you being caught if you're using a mobile phone while stopping a motor vehicle or not wearing a seatbelt over the next two weeks. Why do you think people have become so barzile? I imagine you could walk out anywhere at the moment in any city street or out of the freeway and you would pass people on the phone. Why do people you think just keep doing it? They know it's illegal. You know, I think it's a lack of understanding, lack of seeing that connection between the behaviour that they're adopting and the consequence, the likely consequence. You know, I've always said that fatal traffic accidents are something that are really quite secretive in a way. A fatal traffic accident occurs. The scene is blocked off. Very few people actually see it. The media self-regulate in terms of the type of image that they convey to a community. So really, it's very much hidden. The devastation and what happens to human bodies as a result of vehicle impacts, either striking as a pedestrian or being an occupant in a vehicle is absolutely shocking. And the sorts of injuries that we see from this are the sorts of things that the majority of people never, ever get a chance to see. And more importantly, they don't see often a connection between that behaviour, for example, the use of a mobile phone and the shocking injuries that result from an accident in which those sorts of things happen. And I'm not quite sure how we would change that. I'm not sure how we can personalise that damage and that pain and that ongoing rehabilitation or that ongoing loss and marry that back to a behaviour that we don't want to see. So I guess the short answer is I just don't think people understand the relationship between using a mobile phone and the death and injury that occurs as a result. What is the legislation? Is it as simply as people just reach for the phone, they can be done? If you touch your phone, effectively, and you press a button to answer it, you press a button to turn it on or off, it's an offence. So the only safe way to use your mobile phone is whilst the vehicle is parked legally, the side of the road or somewhere else, and the only other alternative to that is a voice-actuated phone. So in other words, if you can talk to your phone and it can respond, then it doesn't actually commit an offence. But of course, we would always say that any distraction, that takes your mind off the job and that might result in a serious traffic crash. So really, from our perspective, the only safe place to operate a mobile telephone when you're in a vehicle is when that vehicle is parked safely, legally, operated there. What kind of traffic police will be out in the road during this operation? Well, we obviously have the same policing staff, but what will occur in this case is that a lot more police time and resources will be devoted to this operation, effectively. It's a bit hard to sort of pick a number, but all our police are respective of their roles and this includes our criminal investigation branch and our Child Protection Investigation Unit people, all our general duties police, all our traffic branch police that normally handle those sorts of matters. Everybody has received the same message that the focus for the next two weeks is on mobile phone use and seatbelts. So, you know, there will be a range of police who will be focusing for the next couple of weeks on those things. There's going to be some people that are going to blow up deluxe when they get pulled up over the next couple of weeks saying, why are you hitting me from my phone? Shouldn't you be out catching real criminals? What do you say to that? Yeah, look, I just look at the figures and I say to myself, you know, 269 people killed on our roads last year. 31 killed on our roads so far this year. Some of those are investigating obviously for lack of wearing a seatbelts and mobile phone use, but 31 which is five more than it was this time last year. That's really serious. You know, road safety is one of those things that you really have to focus the resources and the time and the effort into and the strategy into because this is the stuff that's really, really claiming people's lives in a way that, I mean, if this was murders or if this was any other type of offence that led to death, 269 would be unforgivable. It would be a figure that we wouldn't put up with. It's a staggering number when you think about it and compare it with the likes of the murders and the other life taking events that occur in our community. If 269 people were killed over the course of a year in disasters it would be unbelievable. There would be periods of mourning, there would be national memorial days, we would be throwing so much attention and resources at it and yet 269 people slipped through our fingers over the course of last year and 31 in the few weeks of this year and we don't sort of recognise the significance of that. I'm sure that the people, the families and friends of those who died I'm sure they recognise the significance of it but I just wonder why a broader section of the community are not more focused on making sure that everything they do inside a vehicle is safe as possible. What are these two weeks? Is there any particular reason why you've singled out these two? Is there some sort of heavy traffic period or something? What we do is this is a particular operation that's come as a result of what we consider to be a need. We're in the early part of the year, we're seeing seatbelts feature in our fatal traffic crash so we've simply kept it off early, we don't want to get any worse, we don't want to wear seatbelts, claiming the lives of any more people on Queensland road so I guess we're getting kicked off early and getting stuck in now as quickly as we can and things will change. If we see trends that emerge over the course of the coming weeks, months etc we'll change the focus of our operation to try to address those so we're trying to be as responsive as we can, we're trying to be as proactive as we can and of course this is just one step in what will be I think a quite a busy year to keep those stats under control. Will this operation be day and night or will it be mainly in the day? No, it's sort of 24 hours all the police that are operating on the roads 24 hour service, they'll be continuing with that, the philosophy will be the same targeting seatbelts and mobile phones and it will happen 24 hours a day.