State leaders have vowed to crack down on foreign drivers who abuse Australia’s slow data sharing system to evade thousands of demerit points.
The New South Wales Demerit Points Integrity Task Force, set up in July, found that a French driver had accumulated 1,606 points in three months, enough to lose his license 123 times.
The task force has been investigating foreign drivers who evaded sanctions by nominating their friends who leave the country to receive their demerit points.
NSW Premier Chris Minns told 2GB presenter Ben Fordham the cunning strategy was “clearly” to put other drivers at risk.
“If you can drive with impunity in your own mind, knowing that it will never catch up to you, you will make terrible decisions on the roads,” Minns said Tuesday.
‘This was all unknown before the task force looked into it and discovered the fact that one household in Sydney had accumulated thousands of points in a very short period of time.
‘We need to make sure the data sharing process is much quicker, as well as making sure that when you name another driver as responsible for demerit points, that driver has to take them on almost immediately.
“That might require legislative changes, but we’re working on it.”
New South Wales Premier Chris Minns (pictured) has vowed to crack down on foreign drivers who nominate their friends leaving Australia for their demerit points.
Highway patrol and traffic officers can access a data system that shows a driver’s traffic history when they stop them.
However, the system does not update in real time, meaning the driver could have accumulated points earlier that day that would not appear.
Delays in the system have allowed a number of repeat offenders to continue committing traffic offenses and flee Australia before police become aware of their crimes.
Between last December and April of this year, the state’s “worst driver,” the French citizen who accumulated 1,606 demerit points, committed an average of three violations a day, for a total of 355 fines worth $114,485.
None of the fines have been paid.
The investigation led to the discovery of a house in Sydney that was designated as the residence of 30 foreign drivers, mainly French nationals.
That the offenders, many of whom were food delivery drivers, had accumulated an incredible 2,102 points in 12 months.
Other drivers caught during the task force’s investigation include a French national who racked up 553 demerit points.
He was stopped by highway patrol officers in May, when he had accumulated just 240 points, but doubled that amount before leaving Australia.
A task force found that a French driver had accumulated 1,606 points over three months on New South Wales roads, enough to lose his license 123 times (pictured, a police officer using speed radar).
Transport NSW intends to work with the French consulate to find ways to better identify and prevent fraud.
Roads Minister John Graham described the demerit point as “reckless”.
“The magnitude of the violations (by some drivers) and the threat they represent to road safety is frankly shocking,” he told the Daily Telegraph.
“I want to reassure the 6.9 million license holders in New South Wales that the system will continue to be fair and easy to use, but we will no longer be taken advantage of by a small fraction of those who break the entry and exit rules “.