December 27th, 2025$20 million boost to road policing operations
The state government is making Victorian roads safer with a $20 million boost to road policing operations, which will see more roadside drug tests and improved technology to catch those doing the wrong thing.
The $21.1 million road policing investment will deliver five Victoria Police projects that will increase drug testing, expand the use of technology to catch unauthorised drivers and reduce paperwork so police can spend more time on the road.
The Transport Accident Commission (TAC) funding will see:
- An extra 25,000 roadside drug tests each year;
- Roadside Impaired Driver Evidence (RIDE) technology to reduce the manual paperwork required at the roadside to process drug and alcohol data collection
- an extra 88 vehicles fitted with automatic numberplate recognition (ANPR) technology to help detect dangerous and unauthorised drivers;
- the replacement and upgrade of police in-car video technology in 98 vehicles, allocated to one-member stations in regional and remote locations;
- the replacement of 123 evidentiary breath testing instruments used to detect drink drivers and purchasing an additional 27 new instruments.
Victoria Police has started rolling out the additional roadside testing to combat drug driving, which now exceeds drink driving as a major cause of deaths on our roads.
The new RIDE application will be developed to support the increase in tests, automating administrative processes relating to drug and alcohol testing.
The expansion of ANPR, upgrade to in-car video technology and the increase and renewal of breath testing equipment will make our roads safer.
The road policing investment is in addition to the $1.1 billion being invested by the state government under the Victorian Road Strategy 2021-2030, which aims to halve the number of deaths on our roads by 2030.
