The Queensland Police Service has launched a year-round road safety operation designed to increase visible enforcement between school holiday campaigns, amid a rise in road deaths and a sharp fall in enforcement hours since 2019.
Named ‘Operation Interpose’, the blitz will target road safety during periods between the four major campaigns run during school holidays, ABC News reports.
Queensland’s year-to-date road toll is about 20 per cent higher than at the same point in 2025, according to government road-safety data.
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As reported by ABC News in November 2025, data published by Queensland Police shows a 46 per cent drop in road safety enforcement between 2019 and 2024 – despite the number of drivers in the state increasing by more than 500,000.
“There was a period of time undoubtedly that the general public felt that there weren’t many police out there, so you could take more risks,” Chief Superintendent Mark Wheeler told the outlet.
“You could speed, you could have a few drinks at the pub and still drive home. Well, we’re here to tell you, you can’t do that.”
Enforcement time logged by police peaked in 2019, at 890,728 hours, and dropped to just 478,143 hours in 2024. Last year saw an uptick for the first time since before the pandemic, at 522,968 hours.
Chief Superintendent Wheeler says there will now be an “operational focus” on improving road safety by targeting speeding, impaired driving, and those who break the road rules.
The Queensland government raked in $464.3 million in fines from motorists in the 2024 financial year – almost three times the $171.2 million it pocketed in 2019-2020 – despite a fall of over 30 per cent in the number of speeding fines dished out, with 177,018 infringements issued in 2024 compared to 254,370 in 2020.
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