The water police squad has had a busy start to the year responding to more than 100 incidents in the first week of January with majority of the cases involving jetskis. With more high temperatures on the way, police are issuing a water safety warning ahead of the weekend.
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00:00Stirring the waters in Port Phillip Bay, high speeds endangering families relaxing beachside.
00:10People are out there swimming with their families and a jet ski goes straight past at 20 knots. It's extremely dangerous.
00:17Police responding to more than 100 incidents in the first week of this year, mostly involving dangerous use of jet skis.
00:26Last weekend, three people were hospitalised in two separate jet ski incidents at Safety Beach.
00:32In Rye, three teenage boys had their jet ski towed back to shore after nose diving into a wave.
00:39Police now ramping up patrols ahead of a warm weekend.
00:44We'll be at the boat ramps with the public order response team.
00:47We'll be checking your safety gear, your licence, we'll be making sure your vessels are registered.
00:52As of December last year, nearly 28,500 jet skis were registered in Victoria, jumping by 4,000 since 2020.
01:02Community groups around Port Phillip Bay have banded together to campaign to ban jet skis within one kilometre of the shoreline.
01:11There's more non-jet ski owners than what there are jet ski owners.
01:15But we seem to be, as a group, we seem to be the ones that are ignored continuously.
01:19Police issued about 300 infringements for jet ski offences last year.
01:24But the boating industry says it's only a minority doing the wrong thing.
01:29I think the current regulations are really good and it's just a matter of those being enforced correctly
01:34and for the minority that do the wrong thing being weeded out and being dealt with.
01:38A call for thrill seekers to cool their jets.