Double demerits: New England Police urge caution on roads for Easter long weekend

Knocking on the door to tell a family their loved one won’t be home is something New England Superintendent Scott Tanner will never forget.

“It never gets easier,” he told Fairfax Media, on a roadtrip up the New England Highway from Armidale to Tenterfield this week.

He passed several highway patrol cars monitoring speed, trying to stop those breaking the rules. Littered along the roadside was several crosses, bearing the names of those who have lost their lives on the deadly stretch in years gone by.

“I’ll never forget the first one,” he said, “I remember it vividly”.

“You don’t get taught that [at the police academy].

“The road trauma, it’s horrific.

“It has a ripple effect, it not only tears families apart, but so many others, and the community.”

The new top cop of the New England – taking over an area bigger than Switzerland, from Moree to Tenterfield and down to Uralla – is making an impassioned plea for motorists to drive safe this Easter long weekend.

Cutting the death toll on local roads and road trauma is one of four key issues for the local officer, who hails from Werris Creek and has had stints in Manilla and Tamworth, and country stations for most of his 25-year career on the beat.

Every single shift in general duties, or on the truck, policing the streets, in the blue uniform.

“The effect a death on our road has on the family, their lives, it can’t be measured,” he said.

“A family member has to go and identify you, the last memory they will have of you.

“Then their whole association with police, so every time they see a police officer or pass a police vehicle on the road, it triggers that memory, that memory of when they knocked on the door to deliver the news.

“Every Christmas, every birthday, every Easter, so many occasions will remind them of that death, and they never get over that.”

On Thursday night, double demerits will kick into gear, mean motorists risk losing their licence in one go for speeding, not wearing a seatbelt or a motorbike helmet.

Already, a man aged in his eighties lost his life in Uralla on Monday night. He was runover by a vehicle on a property. But the road toll is climbing higher, with several deaths on local roads since January 1.

“Your family, your friends will forgive you if you are late home,” Superintendent Tanner said of speeding and mobile phones – two of the biggest contributors to the road toll in country areas.

“People will forgive you if you don’t call them back.”

Double demerits runs until midnight on Easter Monday.