Since the start of this year, two people have died in road accidents on Greater Shepparton roads.
In the 12 months from March last year to March this year, 10 people died in Greater Shepparton.
Inspector Bruce Simpson said police believed the drop in the road toll was partly due to police focusing on road safety.
“We believe that is due to more comms [communication] in the community and more police visibility in the community,” he said.
Police in Shepparton have been doing Operation Halo over several months, which involves having more police cars on the road patrolling.
“When a driver sees a police vehicle with flashing lights on the road, they modify their behaviour for a period of time. That may be the next 30 minutes,” Insp Simpson said.
“The more police with lights that they see, the more of a halo effect it has.”
Shepparton Highway Patrol Acting Senior Sergeant Mel Walker told the forum how police were still seeing speed or impairment — either from alcohol or drugs — heavily reflected as factors in the statistics of crashes in Greater Shepparton.
“That why you continue to see focus on drug- and drink-impaired driving and speed,” she said.
Act Sen Sgt Walker encouraged people to contact Crime Stoppers or 000 if they saw someone driving badly.
Superintendent Brett Kahan also encouraged people to report people who were “driving like a criminal” so police could do something about it.
He spoke of one incident where police had a tip-off from a member of the public that a person was regularly drink-driving and did not have a licence, which resulted in police stationing an officer near the man’s house to catch him driving.
Family violence was another topic that sparked plenty of interest at the forum.
Attendees were told how the most recent Crime Statistics Agency statistics showed there had been an increase of 31 per cent in this area on the previous year.
However, Shepparton family violence investigation unit manager Detective Senior Sergeant Cherrie McCaig said police saw the increase as a “positive”, as it meant more people had confidence to report family violence to police and other agencies.
It also meant those affected family members could be helped, and police could keep an eye on the perpetrators.
“If they were not reporting it, it would be going on behind closed doors,” Det Sen Sgt McCaig said.
The officer said police had a strong focus on recidivist offenders, by doing regular compliance checks, while they also offered support to victims by visiting their homes and linking them up with other agencies and support services to help.
Detective Senior Sergeant Paul Shortis spoke of there being a slight increase in the drug possession statistics on the previous 12 months, but said this was a “good thing”, as it meant police were finding drugs on offenders, or in homes where they were attending family violence incidents, and also during searches of cars.
Retail theft had also increased, but Det Sen Sgt Shortis said this was due to police making retail theft a “big priority”, and specifically targeting the problem during police operations.
Insp Simpson said police were pleased at the turnout for this year’s Victoria Police Neighbourhood Policing Forum, with almost double the number of attendees than previous years.
This year the forum was held online and at night in an attempt to attract more people, instead of the traditional in-person day-time slot it has previously held.
Just over 100 people took part, which Insp Simpson labelled “exceptional”.
Insp Simpson said one of the key things police took away from the forum was the thirst by the public to know what police were doing locally and to work on how to keep residents better informed.
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