Four Speeding Charges - All charges withdrawn - Client keeps her licence!

We acted for a client who received four speeding fines in the same day during a double demerit period – the Christmas holidays.

The client was caught by four separate speed cameras whilst on a long road trip driving north in New South Wales.

The client discovered that the rental car she was driving had a faulty speedometer. She wrote to the State Debt Recovery Office, seeking withdrawal of her speeding fines, based on the fact that she drove a rental car with a faulty speedo.

The State Debt Recovery Office, as is often the case, was unable to assist and demanded that she pay the fines.

The client felt that she did not have any option but to elect to have all matters heard at Court. All four matters were listed before a different Court in New South Wales.

After reading one of our articles on our website, the client realised that she required expert assistance and was confident that we would be able to help her.

We advised the client that appealing to a “Government Collection Agency” such as the State Debt Recovery Office usually proved pointless and that now that proceedings were on foot, representations needed to be made to the prosecuting authority – the RTA (as it was then known).

We made representations to the RTA, relying on Commonwealth legislation, a strong legal argument and common sense and argued that our client would be successful in defending all the matters before the Court. I threatened that if the proceedings were not withdrawn, then our client would seek that the RTA pay her legal costs once she was successful.

In the meantime, we arranged for solicitors to appear at the four different Courts and have all matters adjourned to the same Court, awaiting a reply from the RTA.

Initially, the RTA rejected my submissions. This left the client further distraught, as the entire ordeal was taking its toll on her and of course costing her money.

We advised the client that I would keep pressing the RTA and that, even if the matter did proceed to a hearing, we were confident that we would be able to have the RTA pay for her legal costs.

Less than a week before the hearing, a senior prosecutor that was advocating the matter for the RTA received my submissions and rang me and advised me that he would withdraw the proceedings against our client.

We called the client to advise her that she was successful in having all four speeding charges dropped, without the expense and trouble of going through with a hearing.

Once again, the client cried. But what were initially tears of anguish and despair when first coming to us were now tears of absolute joy!