South Australia’s road death toll is more than double what it was at this point in 2022, prompting outrage from police and demands that drivers be more careful.
This year there have been 37 lives lost on the state’s roads, much higher than the 16 just one year ago.
SA Police are now fed up with dangerous driving, with a woman who was stopped by officers recording 0.087 on a blood-alcohol test when she had a child in her front seat.
“This just shows the absolute apathy or disregard that people have got at the moment, which has to stop,” SA Police Assistant Commissioner Ian Parrott said.
It comes after another horrifying incident, where an officer who had previously told a crash victims family that their loved one had died in an accident, returned to the same spot to find a man speeding at 175km/h.
The 44-year-old told the officer that he was “blowing off steam”.
“Can you imagine the shock and frustration that that police officer experienced having been given the job to do a death knock only to be confronted by someone who is driving like an idiot,” Mr Parrot said.
“To say that is disappointing is an understatement, it‘s a disgrace.”
In response to the mounting death toll, police and paramedics have launched a new campaign highlighting the impact of fatal crashes on first responders.
Police are warning that the campaign will only become more confronting
“The rest of the education pieces that will flow from this are going to be fairly hard hitting, they are going to be confronting,” Mr Parrott said.
It includes social media videos but police have also established a mock crash site on the outskirts of Port Wakefield.