State leaders have vowed to crack down on foreign drivers who abuse Australia’s slow data-sharing system to avoid thousands of penalty points.
New South Wales’ Demerit Point Integrity Taskforce, set up in July, found a French driver had amassed 1,606 points in three months – enough to lose his driver’s license 123 times.
The task force has been investigating foreign drivers who have avoided fines by nominating their friends who leave the country to collect their penalty points.
NSW Premier Chris Minns told 2GB presenter Ben Fordham that the sneaky strategy “clearly” put other drivers at risk.
“If you can drive with impunity in your own mind, knowing he’s never going to pass you, you’re going to make terrible decisions on the roads,” Minns said Tuesday.
“This was all unknown before the task force looked at it and laid out the fact that a household in Sydney had accumulated thousands of points in a very short period of time.
‘We need to make the data sharing process a lot faster and ensure that when you appoint another driver as responsible for the penalty points, that driver has to take them back almost immediately.
‘That may require legislative changes, but we are working on it.’
NSW Premier Chris Minns (pictured) has promised to crack down on foreign drivers who nominate their friends who leave Australia to collect their penalty points
Road and traffic police officers have access to a data system that shows a driver’s traffic data when he or she is stopped.
However, the system is not updated in real time, meaning the driver could have collected points earlier that day that would not appear.
The system’s delays allowed several repeat offenders to continue committing traffic offenses and flee Australia before police became aware of their crimes.
Between December last year and April April, the state’s ‘worst driver’ – the Frenchman who racked up 1,606 penalty points – committed an average of three offenses a day, with a total of 355 fines worth $114,485.
Not a single fine has been paid.
The investigation led to the discovery of a Sydney mansion nominated as the home of 30 foreign drivers, mostly French nationals.
Those offenders, many of whom were food delivery workers, had racked up a whopping 2,102 points in 12 months.
Other drivers caught during the task force’s investigation include a French national who racked up 553 penalty points.
He was arrested by highway patrol officers in May when he had amassed just 240 points, but doubled that number before leaving Australia.
A task force found a French driver had racked up 1,606 points on NSW roads in three months – enough to lose his license 123 times (pictured, a police officer uses a speed radar)
Transport NSW plans to work with the French Consulate to find ways to better identify and prevent fraud.
Roads Minister John Graham described the penalty as ‘reckless’.
“The scale of the offenses (by some drivers) and the threat they pose to road safety is nothing short of shocking,” he told police. Daily Telegraph.
‘I would like to reassure the 6.9 million license holders in NSW that the system will remain fair and easy to use, but we will no longer be abused by a small proportion of fly-in fly-out rule breakers.’