New laws to stop false traffic declarations

The ACT Government will introduce new legislation into the Legislative Assembly this week that will clamp down on people who make false or misleading infringement notice declarations to avoid demerit points for traffic offences, Attorney General, Simon Corbell announced today.

"This issue of people putting forward false or misleading infringement declarations is a known problem in all jurisdictions and this legislation will see it addressed here in the ACT," Mr Corbell said.

"A particular problem with false or misleading declarations has been identified where corporations fail to identify the driver of corporately registered vehicles involved in traffic offences and this new law will address this issue."

"This is about strengthening the powers of the administering authority for infringement notices to obtain information from people who make infringement notice declarations, and to deem where accurate or misleading statements have been made," he said.

The amendments mean that the responsible person for a vehicle will be required to take all reasonable steps to assist the administering authority to identify and locate the person who was in possession or control of the vehicle when the offence was committed.

If the responsible person for a vehicle is a corporation, and fails on two or more occasions to provide the driver's details to the administering authority, the road transport authority will be required to suspend the registration of the vehicle involved in the offence, or another of the corporation's vehicles, for up to six months or until the information is provided.

Mr Corbell said this sanction was intended to ensure that corporations do not shield drivers involved in demerit point offences.

"The proposed measures in the Bill are primarily aimed at making sure that the demerit points for an offence are properly attributed to the driver who committed that offence," Mr Corbell said.

"The demerits point scheme is an important part of the driver licensing system and promotes road safety by deterring unsafe driving behaviour and removing drivers with unsafe driving practices from the road for a period of time," he said.

The Bill also contains procedural amendments to modernise the infringement notice scheme.

It also includes a provision that allows applications to be made for additional time to pay infringement notice penalties, or take other action in response to an infringement notice or reminder notice.

"The inclusion of this provision in the Bill recognises that people may have special circumstances that prevent them from responding within the normal 28 day period, including illness, absence interstate or other personal circumstances," Mr Corbell said.