Roads Minister Duncan Gay said a campaign by NSW Police and Roads and Maritime Services (RMS) was launched following the deaths of three members of a family at Menangle in January last year.
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Donald and Patricia Logan, both aged 81, and their son Calvyn, 59, died when a truck swerved onto the wrong side of a highway and hit their car.
Mr Gay told reporters in Sydney on Monday the campaign had been “hugely successful” with latest RMS figures showing a 79 per cent fall in the number of heavy vehicles detected speeding at more than 105km/h over the past year.
“NSW motorists can now feel genuinely safer on our roads knowing there are fewer heavy vehicles thundering down our highways at excessive speed,” Mr Gay said.
NSW Police Superintendent Stuart Smith of the force’s Traffic and Highway Patrol said that last year police and RMS Joint Heavy Vehicle Taskforce inspected more than 2600 heavy vehicles, resulting in 93 trucks being grounded for having non-compliant speed limiters.
More than 800 defects and infringement notices were issued for a range of other offences, and officers carried out nearly 6000 random drug tests on truck drivers, with 70 returning positive results, he said.
“We much prefer taking these actions than we do knocking on the door of a home to tell a family their loved one has been killed by a speeding truck.”
Supt Smith said police would continue to work closely with the trucking industry but would not tolerate the “small, rogue element” who continue to put lives at risk by speeding and recklessly tampering with their vehicles.
Point-to-point speed cameras which calculate the average speed of trucks were also installed on major highways.