In one Melbourne suburb, drug drivers outnumber the next-worst neighbourhood threefold as police catch at least one a day.
Pakenham, on the city’s south-eastern outer fringe, has topped Victoria as the suburb with the most drug drivers, after police caught 358 offenders there during the 2024-25 financial year.
Police detected more drug drivers in Pakenham than anywhere else in Victoria.Credit: Jason South
The mega-suburb is also Victoria’s most common place of residence for drug drivers.
The number of drug drivers intercepted in Pakenham is triple that of Victoria’s second-worst offending suburb, Dandenong, also in the city’s south-east. Police intercepted 114 drug drivers in Dandenong.
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Almost one in five drug drivers in Victoria, or a total of 1460 offenders, was caught in the broader region of Greater Dandenong, Casey and Cardinia, outnumbering the second-worst area – Greater Geelong – threefold.
Of the drug drivers caught in the worst-offending region, almost 70 per cent were on methamphetamine, and 43 per cent had both methamphetamine and THC in their systems.
One-quarter were unauthorised drivers, Victoria Police said.
The broader region also recorded the most collisions involving drug and alcohol-impaired drivers of anywhere in the state. Six in 10 of its drug drivers were repeat offenders.
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