A gang of teenagers is on the run after a woman was slashed with a machete during a terrifying attempted carjacking.

The 29-year-old was filling her car at a service station in Dandenong, in Melbourne’s outer south-east, on Sunday night when a small, white four-wheel-drive with no number plates pulled up behind her.

Police said that when she returned to her car, she was approached by three males, one of them carrying a machete.

One of the boys, all aged between 14 and 20, demanded the woman’s keys and attempted to snatch them, but she resisted.

She was slashed on the arm during the scuffle before the attackers fled to their stolen vehicle, which was driven by a fourth male.

Detective Acting Sergeant Samuel Douglas said the woman was taken to hospital after she was hit by the machete, but was careful to point out she had not been slashed by the weapon.

“At 6.35 at night you should expect to fill up your car with fuel without being attacked,” he said outside the Dandenong Police Station on Monday.

“They have preyed on a lone female so I’ll describe that act as low, dirty and cowardly.”

Douglas said the “brave” woman was “pretty shaken up” and that she had already been discharged from hospital. Investigators were working hard to identify her attackers.

“Unfortunately this is a common issue for the area. A week doesn’t go by where we don’t investigate something of a similar nature and I understand it’s the same statewide,” he said.

The incident comes amid a long wait for laws to ban the sale and possession of machetes in Victoria. They take effect from September 1.

The laws include expanded police search powers for weapons.

Sellers will have to apply for an exemption to keep selling machetes past September 1, when a three-month amnesty begins for people to legally dispose of the deadly items.

The laws were rushed through the Victorian parliament after Crime Statistics Agency figures showed 24,550 offences committed by children aged 10 to 17 in the state in 2024, the highest number since electronic records started being collected in 1993.

On average, there were about 18 aggravated burglaries a day across the state in 2024 and car thefts spiked by 41.2 per cent to their highest level since 2002.

Harsher bail laws to respond to surging youth crime, aggravated burglaries and car thefts came into effect in April after being rushed through Victorian parliament by the Allan Labor government.

-AAP