Drones to keep an eye in the sky on Tasmanian roads

The Tasmanian Liberal Government 2022-23 Budget will include an additional $460,000 to facilitate Tasmania Police’s continued usage of drone technology to help bring offenders to justice and to crack down on anti-social driving.

Since 2018 the Tasmanian Liberal Government has provided $400,000 to

Tasmania Police for the purpose of enabling drone technology to be used to assist our police officers in their operational activities.

Due to this investment, Tasmania Police has established 29 remote pilots across the State and has carried out more than 935 aerial operations using this technology.

There have been a number of successes across Tasmania where offenders in stolen and evading vehicles have been apprehended with drone support, and a number of stolen vehicles have been located in bushland by using drones.

This additional $460,000 in funding will support an increase in operational demand for drones, which have become a valuable and vital resource in our fight against crime, searching for missing people and helping to make our community safe.

Crash Investigators are also utilising data from drones in the reconstruction of crash scenes and calculating vehicle speeds.

Drones are also particularly useful in enabling remote observations of traffic offenders, including tracking down hooning offenders.

Tasmania Police now operate 30 drones across the State and they are producing great results in targeting hooning behaviour, with drone identified hooning offences resulting in the seizure of offending vehicles and making our communities safer.

The Tasmanian Liberal Government is committed to keeping Tasmanians safe, particularly on our roads in light of a recent spate of fatal crashes, and this investment will play an important role in keeping our communities safe.