WAGGA man Wes Higgins got a rude shock when he rang the State Debt Recovery Office (SDRO) in the hope of having his speeding fine revoked.
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Mr Higgins contacted the SDRO after the office of NSW Minister for Roads, Duncan Gay, expressed sympathy in The Daily Advertiser last month for the circumstances under which Mr Higgins was fined.
Mr Higgins was fined $230 and docked three demerit points for speeding in Docker Street on a weekend in February during which the tactics employed by the company operating a mobile speed camera were questioned by Mr Gay.
The moves included warning signs being obscured by parked vehicles and only one sign being placed ahead of the speed camera car instead of two.
A spokesman for Mr Gay said the minister would write to finance minister Greg Pearce asking him to request the SDRO revoke the fine.
Mr Higgins yesterday said when he rang the SDRO, the person he spoke with didn’t care about the development and came across as quite rude.
“It’s a very sore point with me,” Mr Higgins said
“She said you need to pay the fine or take it to court.
“I can’t take it to court; I don’t have the time, I’m setting up a business.”
Mr Higgins said when he asked to pay the fine in instalments he was told that was not possible because he was working, but after more quizzing the operator said if he defaulted on the fine and the matter went to “collections” he would then be offered the opportunity to pay off the fine.
Despite assurances from the government 12 months ago that mobile speed camera warning signage would be improved, the Advertiser again at the weekend came across an obscured sign in Docker Street. It was placed on the nature strip between trees.
Anyone caught by the camera on the long weekend faces losing double demerit points.
A spokesman for Mr Gay’s office yesterday said it was impossible to chase up Mr Higgins’s matter on a public holiday Monday but undertook to follow it up today.
Mr Higgins said he had been contacted recently by Channel 9’s news department in Sydney about his experience and was told they were investigating dodgy mobile speed camera tactics, including placing cameras in “confused areas” such as near intersections and areas where there were multiple speed limit changes.