But in the first half an hour of the day, I was personally confronted with three individuals doing the wrong thing – what a start to the day!

On my way to work there was a fellow doing at least 40km over the speed limit on Bowral Road, between Mittagong and Bowral, weaving in and out of the traffic.

Of course, I followed him and pulled over as soon as I could. His excuse was that he was running late for work.

I told him that nothing was that important.

So I got into Bowral for a meeting, and popped out first for a coffee.

On my way to the cafe, I saw someone on the phone in a school zone, going through an orange light.

Her excuse was that she was having a bad day.

I told her that it just got a whole lot worse.

Straight after that, heading back to the police station, I saw a tradie in a big Landcruiser ute on the phone, and gave him a ticket too.

That was all within the space of 30 minutes!

People must not be getting message, but what more can we do?

If it means giving out big tickets until people pay attention, then that’s what we’ll do.

In relation to crime rates, we know that we are at historic lows.

Maybe it’s the freezing cold weather, but I think it’s more to do with good police work.

One of the ways we see this is the good stuff that’s happening through the PCYC.

I went to a meeting there this week, attended by Mittagong and Goulburn PCYC staff, as well as youth liaison officers and other police who are across youth issues.

It was really pleasing to see some of the programs that are having great results with our young people.

It turns out that over 80 percent of youth who come into contact with police in our region don’t reoffend, which is excellent.

Things seem to be going very well, with solid improvements in outcomes for our vulnerable youth.

Until next week...