Drivers disputing speeding fines

Laser and radar guns are the front line offensive against speeding. Now, motorists are speaking up and casting doubt over the way the guns are being used.

Kenneth Petek is preparing to fight a ticket he received from an officer armed with a handheld laser or radar gun. The ticket reads that he was speeding - 70 kph in a 50 kph zone - but Kenneth, who's car is fitted with a speed limiter at 60 km per hour, doesn't believe any of it adds up.

"I said 'sorry I don't think I was doing 73 kph'. He showed me the camera in my face and he said 'here you are', and I said, 'why is it showing 70 kph, why isn't it showing 73 kph?' He didn't want to know," Petek said.

"Physically it couldn't have been doing anything more than sixty simply because the petrol cuts out."

Kenneth will try and prove in court that the reading was 'retained' from a previous vehicle.

"I truly and sincerely believe that the cameras, not just in my case but perhaps in others as well, were preset beforehand."

Barrister Sergio Petrovich: "There is a practice among traffic police in Victoria called 'retained readings' and what that means is that they'll check a motorist early in the day with a legitimate reading - say for example 72 or 73 in a sixty zone - and then retain that reading on the laser. Subsequent motorists they guesstimate the speed, pull them over, tell them that were doing seventy three in a sixty zone. If the motorists query it they show them the original reading and then write them out a ticket for that."

Petrovich represents Senior Constable Afrain Asaf. She's currently contesting a speeding fine case.

When it comes to excuses about speeding traffic lawyer, Sean Hardy says he's heard them all. He's also familiar with the retained reading defence.

"Rather than use their laser and radar device to track a true reading of a speeding vehicle, they will just allege that the retained reading is the speed of the vehicle being intercepted. So in a sense, it's a lazy way of attributing a reading or a speed to a car," Hardy said.

"It's always been suspected that it might happen, but I doubt very much that it's widespread," he added.

He explains that lasers and radars record not only the alleged speed, but also the location, time and distance the car was away from the hand-held unit. An audit of an officers infringement book would easily uncover a pattern of identical results.

But without access to an officer's infringement book, what chance do you have of being successful in court claiming you're a victim of a retained reading?

Adds Hardy: "You don't have to be a motorist to be concerned about police falsifying their evidence."