General News
3 May, 2026
Bust on the Western Highway
MOTORISTS travelling along the Western Highway in Ararat were met with a large-scale police operation on Monday as authorities targeted a range of driving and compliance offences. The joint operation, conducted in Gum San’s parking lot, involved Ararat Police, Northern Grampians Highway Patrol and the Sheriff’s Office. Officers focused on detecting drug and alcohol use, registration offences, licence breaches including disqualified or suspended drivers, unsafe or unregistered vehicles, and outstanding fines, including everything from unpaid police infringements, parking fines and fail to vote offences through to unpaid tolls.
Constable Amy Scheitner said the operation highlighted the scale of outstanding matters among road users.
“Approximately 8,000 vehicles use the Western Highway daily with about one in 10 having outstanding matters with the Sheriff’s Department,” she said.
All drivers were also subject to licence checks by Sheriff’s officers, which resulted in twenty-one people being identified with outstanding matters.
“Of the twenty one people, one hundred and fifteen Sheriff’s warrants were identified at a cost of just over $57,900,” Constable Scheitner said.
Eighteen drivers paid forty-four warrants on the spot, totalling $19,440, while the remaining matters were either placed on payment plans or resolved through alternative arrangements.
During the blitz, three hundred and eighty eight drivers underwent preliminary breath testing and four were drug tested, with no offences detected.
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