Crackdown on windscreen washers

Crackdown: Don't pay windscreen washers at traffic lights, say police.

Police are taking a harder line on windscreen washers in the Belmont area following the arrest of four men at the weekend.

On Saturday officers from Belmont attended the intersection of Tonkin Highway and Great Eastern Highway in Ascot after a report of a verbal altercation between a female driver and some windscreen washers.

As a result four men were charged with soliciting contributions, employment or a ride from a carriageway or median strip and two of those men were also charged with disorderly conduct.

Belmont Police said the washers are responsible for an increased demand on police resources in the Ascot and Rivervale areas.

Motorists are calling police after unpleasant exchanges with windscreen washers usually after declining their offers to wash the windscreen or refusing to pay them.

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There are a large number of windscreen washers who frequent the intersections of Great Eastern Highway and Tonkin Highway, Great Eastern Highway and Graham Farmer Freeway and, to a lesser extent, Abernethy Road and Fulham Street and intersections along Orrong Road.

Police said the industry has become so lucrative it was now drawing people into the area.

Paying a window washer is an offence and could result in a $50 infringement.

Motorists are asked to help solve the issue by not paying the washers, in the hope that if the market is taken away from them the window washers will abandon the intersections and leave people in peace.