By Lauren Henry

Police used a drone on Friday to target driver offences in Horsham for the first time.

Police Operation Metropolis is an ongoing police operation in Horsham, Ararat and Stawell, which started many years ago, and detects traffic offences.

Sergeant Dale McIvor from Horsham Highway Patrol said the operation targeted offences that centred on driver distraction, such as not wearing a seatbelt and using a mobile phone while driving.

“These are the offenses that are causing us the most grief in our towns,” he said.

“We’ve had a significant increase in the amount of minor and collisions that have caused injuries within our city and town areas and Operation Metropolis has arisen as a result of that.”

Sgt McIvor said the drone had enhanced capability to be able to detect motorists who were not wearing seatbelts and were using their mobile phones from a height where they were unable to be identified.

“Hopefully the use of this technology will deter motorists in the future from engaging in those behaviours while they’re driving that are not conducive to safety on our roads,” he said.

“So if you’re checking your phone at an intersection, you might be being watched by a drone that’s about 200 feet away from you.”

Sgt McIvor said the drone operator, Leading Senior Constable Sam McCaskill from Lake Bolac, zeroed in on cars at intersections, looking at where the driver’s hands were.

“If they pick up a phone, we’ve got police cars stationed who are watching this in real time – we have a live feed,” he said.

“We carry portable devices in each vehicle, each member is assigned one, and we can get a real time download from the drone straight to the units, and the units will be able to identify the vehicle and the driver and be able to take the appropriate action.”

Sgt McIvor said he expected the use of drones by police to become commonplace in the future, with several police officers licensed to use the technology.

“We have others based here in Horsham and another one at Stawell, and we have more than one drone,” he said.

Sgt McIvor said drones were one way that police could attempt to dissuade people from committing driving offences.

“If you accumulate 12 demerit points over a period of time, you’ll lose your license for a 12-month period – for those of us that really appreciate having a driver licence, it’s going to be very detrimental,” he said.

Police detected 21 infringements – four drug-driving; five failing to wear a seatbelt; six using a mobile phone while driving; while the others were speeding and unlicensed driving offences. 

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