By Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim On 21 June 2014, Sydney motor mechanic Jason Mansweto was driving his newly restored 1969 GT Ford Falcon XW sedan along Canoona Avenue in Windsor Downs, when he found that the brakes didn’t work as he tried to slow down to take a sharp left turn. Before the drive,… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Traffic Law
Judges Must Explicitly Consider a Clean Record When Sentencing
By Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim Just after 3am on 21 March 2015, Waqar Ul-Hassan was driving Muhammad Ijaz, Hashim Manzoor and Mohammed Aslam back to his place on Merrylands Road, after they’d all spent a night at a friend’s house in Styles Place, Merrylands. The Pakistani national, who was residing in Australia on a… Read more »
Sydney Lawyer Struck Off for Making False Declarations Regarding Driving Offences
By Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim In August 2013, a courier driver sought legal advice from Sydney lawyer Ms Jinhi Kim regarding ten traffic infringement penalty notices he’d received. The pair met, and Ms Kim told her client that she’d write to the State Debt Recovery Office stating he was not the driver. The lawyer… Read more »
Driver Acquitted Despite Drugs Being Found in Car
By Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim At around 9.30 one morning, NSW police officers were at a flat on Murray Street in Port Macquarie investigating an incident, when the phone rang. An officer answered and told the caller the occupant wasn’t home. The caller rang again two minutes later. This time, the officer recognised the… Read more »
Court Decides Whether Drug-Induced Rage Reduces Sentence
By Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim On the evening of 6 September 2014, Zhen Fang stabbed his friend Ting Huang to death, in a frenzied attack whereby he inflicted 20 wounds to the victim’s head, neck, trunk and upper extremities. The two work colleagues had been drinking beer and smoking a substantial amount of ice… Read more »
Magistrate Slams Police for Misadvising About Drug Driving
The offence of drug driving, unlike drink driving, does not require you to have a certain level of drugs in your system at the time of driving – any amount is enough. This means that even drugs taken days ago, which no longer have any effect on your driving ability, could still see you being… Read more »
Court Slashes Payout to Drink Driving Victim
Negligent driving is one of the most common major traffic offences in Australia, behind drink driving. Combining the two can lead to horrific consequences. In one tragic case, an intoxicated P-plater caused the death of his best friend and inflicted severe brain damage upon another passenger when he veered off the road and collided with… Read more »
Can Police Breath Test Me On My Own Property?
Random breath-testing is something we have come to accept as an inevitable part of driving, but where do police powers end? Many people believe that if police saw you driving, they have the right to give you a breath test anywhere, but this is a myth. Simply being on private property is not enough to… Read more »
Case Raises Doubts about the Validity of Speeding Tickets
Have you received a speeding ticket you didn’t deserve? If so, was it from a hand-held speed-detector? Drivers like you could be in luck, depending on the outcome of one case currently going through the Downing Centre Local Court. The case could cast doubt on the validity of speeding tickets, thanks to a technical argument… Read more »
Beware! Fake Penalty Notices are on the Rise
None of us like receiving fines – but perhaps it’s even worse to hand-over your hard-earned money to a scammer when you’ve done nothing wrong. If you’ve received a speeding fine via email – beware! Since late last year, authorities have been warning the public about fake fines that are circulating online. The fraudsters hope that… Read more »