Traffic offences in NSW
Camera detected offences
A camera photographs the vehicle, not the driver. Everything that follows from a camera notice comes back to that one fact: the notice goes to whoever the vehicle is registered to, and it stays with them unless somebody else is named. Get that step right and the rest is straightforward. Get it wrong and the points are yours.
Jump to what you need
On this page
Types of camera Who gets the notice Nominating a driver What can be challenged Average speed cameras Questions
On another page
Speeding penalties Your options and deadlines Parking fines False nominations Licence suspension appeals
Get the photographs before you decide anything
You can view the images for your notice through Revenue NSW online. Look at the plate, the lane, the date and time, and the vehicle itself. Notices are occasionally issued against a misread plate or the wrong vehicle, and nobody finds that except the person who looks. Do it before the due date, not after.
Camera offences are detected by Transport for NSW, and the notice is issued and enforced by Revenue NSW. They are two different agencies with two different roles, which is why people are sent in circles when they ring the wrong one.
Catron Simmons Lawyers act for drivers across New South Wales on camera notices, nominations gone wrong and the suspensions that follow them. Our team includes former prosecutors and former highway patrol officers. This page covers how camera notices work and what can be done about them. For what the offence itself costs, see our page on speeding and camera offences.
The network
What each camera actually records
New South Wales runs the largest camera enforcement network in the country, and what a camera can record decides what can sensibly be argued about it.
| Camera | What it detects |
|---|---|
| Fixed speed | Speed at a single point, using sensors in the road surface and radar, across multiple lanes. Signposted. |
| Mobile speed | Speed from a marked vehicle at an approved roadside site. Warning signs are placed 250 metres before, 50 metres before and 50 metres after, with a sign on the vehicle itself. |
| Red light speed | Both offences at one intersection. One image of the vehicle at the stop line and a second showing it continued into the intersection, plus speed through the light. |
| Average speed | Time taken between two points, converted to an average speed over the length. Heavy vehicles statewide, and light vehicles at the two trial locations. |
| Mobile phone and seatbelt detection | Images of the cabin, reviewed before a notice issues. Originally phone use only, now enforcing seatbelts as well, and upgraded to read traffic in both directions on single lane roads. |
| Bus lane and T-way | Unauthorised vehicles in a bus lane or transit way, by number plate. |
| Safe-T-Cam | Heavy vehicle movements, for fatigue, registration and safety station compliance. |
Mobile speed camera enforcement now runs from thousands of approved deployment sites, roughly double the number of a few years ago, though the total hours of enforcement have not changed. In practice that means the same amount of enforcement spread across far more locations, so the familiar sites are no longer the only ones.
Liability
Who the notice goes to, and why
Camera offences are owner onus offences. Because the camera cannot identify the driver, the law makes the registered operator responsible for the offence unless they name the person who was driving. That is not a technicality to be argued around. It is the design.
- You do not have to have been driving. The notice is validly issued to you as the registered operator whether or not you were behind the wheel.
- Saying you were not driving is not enough. Unless you nominate someone, or establish that the vehicle was stolen or the plate was not yours, the liability stays with you.
- Company vehicles work differently. Where the vehicle is registered to a company, the fine is substantially higher and no demerit points are applied, because a company has no licence. Nominating the driver moves both the lower fine and the points to that person.
- Sold the car? If the transfer was not lodged, you are still the registered operator on the records and the notice comes to you. Evidence of the sale, and the date of it, is what answers the notice.
Do not sign a nomination for someone else
A statutory declaration naming a driver who was not driving is a serious criminal offence in its own right, and a far worse problem than the fine. This applies to parents nominating themselves for a P plater, and to employees nominating themselves for a colleague. See our page on false nominations and failing to nominate, and if you cannot honestly say who was driving, call us before you sign anything.
Nomination
Naming the driver, properly and on time
Nomination is done by statutory declaration, giving the driver’s full name, address and licence details, within the time stated on the notice. Once it is accepted, the notice is withdrawn against you and reissued to the person named.
Check the images first
Confirm the vehicle is actually yours, and that the date, time and location match where the car was. Nominating on a notice that should never have issued gives a problem to someone else and does not solve it.
Get the details right
Full name, residential address and licence number. An incomplete declaration is treated as no nomination at all, and the deadline does not restart while it is sorted out.
Lodge it within time
The deadline is on the notice and it is short. Late nominations are refused, and the fine and the points revert to the registered operator with no further right to nominate.
If you cannot identify the driver
There is a narrow path for an operator who genuinely cannot say, and it requires more than an assertion. The reasonable diligence defence requires you to have actually made enquiries and to be able to show what you did. It is worth advice, because the alternative is wearing the offence yourself.
Defences
What can actually be challenged, and what cannot
Speeding and most camera offences are offences of strict liability. That means the prosecution does not have to prove you meant to do it, and it is why the arguments people bring to us most often are the ones that go nowhere.
Rarely gets anywhere
- You did not see the sign, or did not notice the speed limit had changed.
- Your speedometer read differently. Vehicle speedometers are permitted a tolerance and the camera is the tested instrument.
- Everybody else was doing the same speed.
- You were only just over. That goes to penalty, not to guilt, and on a camera offence there is no penalty discretion short of court.
Worth looking at
- Identity. A misread plate, a cloned or stolen plate, or a vehicle that is simply not yours. The images settle it either way.
- The device. Camera evidence is admissible on the basis that the equipment is approved, sealed and tested at prescribed intervals, and a certificate proves it unless the contrary is shown. Where testing or signage requirements have not been met, that is a real issue rather than a hopeful one.
- Signage on mobile cameras. Warning signs are required at set distances. Their absence does not automatically void a notice, but it is a proper subject of a review request.
- The circumstances. A genuine emergency, a medical crisis, or being forced across a stop line by another vehicle. These are review grounds and, in the right case, a defence.
- What the points will do. The strongest reason to go to court on a camera notice is usually not that the offence did not happen. It is that the points will suspend you and a court can decline to convict.
Your options on any notice, and the deadlines that apply to each, are set out on our infringement notices and fines page, including the rule that lets you elect to go to court within 90 days even after you have paid, with the demerit points reversed.
Point to point
Average speed cameras and the light vehicle trial
An average speed camera does not measure your speed at a point. It records the time you enter a length and the time you leave it, and calculates the average. Braking for the camera achieves nothing, because there is no camera to brake for.
These cameras have enforced heavy vehicle speeding across New South Wales since 2011. For light vehicles they were, until recently, not used at all. That changed with a trial on two stretches of regional highway, the Pacific Highway between Kew and Lake Innes near Port Macquarie, and the Hume Highway between Coolac and Gundagai. Warning letters were issued from May 2025 and full enforcement started on 1 July 2025.
The trial has been extended past its original end date while an independent review is completed, so enforcement continues at both locations. Everywhere else in the state, average speed cameras still enforce against heavy vehicles only. Whether that stays true is a matter for government, and it is worth checking before assuming a length is not enforced.
Penalties for an average speed offence are the same as for any other light vehicle speeding offence. The bands, fines and demerit points are on our speeding and camera offences page.
How we help
Where a camera notice needs a lawyer
Nominations that have gone wrong
A refused nomination, a late one, or one made by somebody who should not have made it. These get worse quickly and they are the camera problem we see most.
When the points will suspend you
A camera notice that tips you over the threshold is worth a court election properly prepared, because a court can decline to convict and Revenue NSW cannot.
Fleets and company vehicles
Corporate notices carry much larger fines and their own nomination obligations. Several at once needs a system, not four separate replies.
You deal with a principal
We are a boutique firm. You talk to the solicitor who will appear for you, not a call centre, and we are contactable outside business hours.
Common questions
Camera detected offences: your questions answered
Can I see the photograph of the offence?
Yes. If you are named on the notice you can view the images through Revenue NSW online, and a person with a lawful interest in the vehicle can also request them. Do it early. It is the only way to check the plate, the lane and the vehicle, and it costs nothing.
Does the camera photograph the driver?
Speed and red light cameras are set up to capture the vehicle, its plate, its lane and its speed, not the person driving. Mobile phone and seatbelt detection cameras are different: they photograph the cabin, and those images are reviewed before a notice is issued.
The details on my notice are wrong. Is it invalid?
Not automatically. It depends on whether the error goes to whether you are legally responsible for the offence. A misspelt name or a wrong date of birth will not usually invalidate a notice. A wrong registration number, or a date and time that do not match, is a different matter entirely.
I was not the driver. What do I do?
Nominate the person who was, by statutory declaration, with their full details, within the time on the notice. Do not nominate yourself for someone else, and do not let it run past the deadline, because both of those turn a fine into a much larger problem.
Do warning signs have to be up for mobile speed cameras?
Warning signs are required at set distances before and after the camera vehicle, along with a sign on the vehicle itself. If they were not there, say so in a review request. It is not a guaranteed answer, but it is a proper ground and it is checked.
My licence is about to be suspended over camera fines. What are my options?
A full licence holder facing a demerit suspension can elect a good behaviour period instead, which carries its own risk, and cannot appeal the suspension itself. Provisional and learner holders can appeal to the Local Court. Either way, it is dealt with on our licence suspension appeals page, and it is time critical.
Send us the notice and the photographs
Email us the camera notice, and the images if you have already downloaded them. We will tell you whether it is worth challenging, whether a nomination is the answer, and what the points will do to your licence. We appear in Local Courts across New South Wales.
Alicia Catron 0407 171 626 or Michelle Simmons 0407 534 594. Open Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm, contactable outside those hours.