Murray River Police District Inspector Paul Huggett has taken over control of the Moama checkpoint and said his goal was to get the bridge commute down to 20 minutes.
“Anything under that is a plus,” he said on Thursday.
“But the goal is to keep it consistent.
“We have a traffic services vehicle that goes across the bridge every hour and scouts the road, lines up in the longest queue and starts a stopwatch. They’re telling us that it’s taking about 15 minutes at the moment.”
However, there have been delays for as long as an hour in the past week, which Insp Huggett said were caused by staffing, technical and weather issues.
“These staffing issues are getting resolved,” he said.
“We had a new changeover of staff on Wednesday. Every week we have a turnaround of staff and there will always be teething issues with that changeover. Coming into summer there will be more rotation of staff because of OHS requirements.
“Last Friday, the delays blew out because of the rain. Because of OHS constraints, we can’t have police standing in torrential rain.”
Insp Huggett said he expected more traffic this long weekend, so he encouraged motorists to be patient and prepared.
“We’ve got extra police to deal with that and assist with peak times,” he said.
“There are three peak times, mid-morning, lunch time and between 5-5.30 pm.
“We’re just pushing for patience and reminding people to have their driver’s licence and permits out ready to be checked.”
During the long weekend, Echuca police will be out in force as part of Operation Saturn.
The two-and-a-half-week road policing operation runs until November 8 and will aim to prevent further trauma on our roads caused by dangerous driving.
Sergeant Paul Nicoll of Campaspe Highway Patrol said the operation came at a critical time, with easing of some restrictions coinciding with two long weekends.
“We’re urging everyone to go back to basics. That means buckling up, slowing down, and not driving while impaired,” he said.
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