Unofficial advice from a police prosecutor on taking a traffic fine to court

In this report: Unofficial pointers from a prosecutor in Redneckistan (which I think some people still refer to as ‘Queensland’).

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This report is inspired by the following unsolicited advice from a Queensland police prosecutor. (Name withheld to protect identity.)

"I prosecute Traffic offences in Queensland. The roadside conversations can help people if they’re dealing with your general duties police, not likely if you are dealing with our road policing guys.

"Queensland has the Penalties and Sentences Act, section 9 speaks about the sentencing guidelines and section 18, No conviction with no further punishment. No matter what the fine is, there is also the offender levy. The demerit points always flow no matter what the penalty, unless you receive the wonderful words of Not Guilty.

"The traffic penalties for traffic tickets in Queensland are set by Queensland Transport. We also have case law where the District Court makes reference to the amount of fine ordered by the court should be higher than the ticket amount to discourage people from contesting a ticket to get a discount.

"Hypothetically, if the ticket amount is $400, you contest it, go to court and decide to plead guilty, you wear the fine plus the offender levy. I say fine because once the ticket becomes a charge, you are open to the maximum penalty which for some offences is 20 penalty units or about $2800.

"One other thing, the prosecutor’s office is somewhat independent of the police who issue tickets. We factor in a range of considerations when deciding if we will continue with an infringement. An example of this, we have a road in Brisbane where there is a Bus jump zone. The lane is a left turn only lane, except for buses which can drive straight ahead, other vehicles must turn left. We recently had a case where a guy got a ticket for disobeying the left turn only sign. AT the time of the offence, every single lane on that road was bumper to bumper so no real gain to be in that lane, so in this instance we discontinued the proceeding.

Hope this makes sense."