Traffic offences in NSW
False nominations and failing to nominate
Someone else agrees to take the points. It looks like a favour and it costs nothing. What it actually does is convert a fine into a criminal charge carrying years of imprisonment, for both of you, and every step taken afterwards to hold the story together makes it worse. People have gone to gaol over a speeding ticket. Not for the speeding.
If a nomination has already gone in, stop here
Do not write to Revenue NSW, do not send further material, and do not have the person you named confirm anything. What you do in the next week decides whether this stays an administrative problem or becomes a police matter. Call us first, on 0407 171 626 or 0407 534 594.
Camera offences are issued to the registered operator, because the camera photographs the vehicle rather than the driver. If you were not driving, the law requires you to say who was. That obligation is real, it is enforceable, and the two ways of getting it wrong are failing to answer it and answering it falsely.
Catron Simmons Lawyers act on nomination matters across New South Wales, for drivers, for the people they named, and for companies with fleets. Our team includes former prosecutors. These matters are usually salvageable when they come to us early and very difficult when they do not.
The obligation
What the law actually requires
Where a camera detects an offence, most often speeding or a red light offence, the penalty notice issues to the responsible person, meaning the registered operator of the vehicle. If that person was not driving, they must nominate the person who was, by statutory declaration, generally within 21 days of the notice being issued.
The nomination is then reissued to the person named, who has the same rights anyone else would have. They can pay it, ask for a review, elect to go to court, or nominate someone else in turn. Nothing about a nomination is unusual or suspicious. It is the ordinary way the system works, and most nominations are entirely proper.
- The declaration must give the driver’s full name, residential address and licence details.
- An incomplete declaration is treated as no nomination at all, and the deadline keeps running while it is sorted out.
- Where the vehicle is registered to a company, the company is under the same duty, and the fine for getting it wrong is much larger.
- How to nominate properly, step by step, is on our camera detected offences page.
The two nomination offences
Failing to nominate, and nominating falsely
Both sit in the Road Transport Act 2013. They are different offences with very different consequences, and the second one is not really a traffic offence at all.
| Fail to nominate | False nomination | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Not naming the driver, or naming them out of time | Naming someone knowing or being reckless as to whether they were driving, or giving false details |
| Maximum, individual | 50 penalty units | 100 penalty units |
| Maximum, corporation | 200 penalty units | 200 penalty units |
| Defence available | Yes, reasonable diligence | No, it is deliberate by definition |
A penalty unit is $110, so those maximums are $5,500, $11,000 and $22,000. The amount on a penalty notice is lower and is stated on the notice itself. Transport for NSW can also suspend the registration of a company vehicle where nomination obligations are repeatedly ignored.
The reasonable diligence defence
A person or company is not liable for failing to nominate if they did not know the nomination details and could not have found them out with reasonable diligence. That is a genuine defence and it is the right answer in some cases, particularly for a vehicle several people use. It is not a shrug. Reasonable diligence means having actually looked, and being able to show what was done, which is why fleet operators should be keeping records that answer the question before the question is asked.
The part people miss
The fine is the least of it
A nomination is made by statutory declaration. That means a false nomination is also a false statutory declaration, and from there the offences escalate very quickly.
| Offence | Maximum penalty |
|---|---|
| False statutory declaration | 5 years imprisonment |
| False statutory declaration where a benefit is obtained or sought | 7 years imprisonment |
| Perjury | 10 years imprisonment |
| Perverting the course of justice | 14 years imprisonment |
These are not theoretical charges reserved for organised schemes. The middle two are what happens when a person defends the false nomination rather than correcting it. You lodge the declaration, the matter is queried, you maintain the account, and eventually you say it on oath in a courtroom. At that point the speeding fine has stopped being relevant to anything.
The snowball is the real danger
Almost nobody is sentenced for the original fine. They are sentenced for what they did to protect the lie. A Federal Court judge went to gaol over exactly this: a false declaration about who was driving on a speeding fine, defended rather than corrected, ending in convictions for perjury and perverting the course of justice and a three year sentence. The fine was under a hundred dollars. We have written about the case that ended a judge’s career and what it still teaches.
Buying and selling points
The demerit point trade
There is an open market in people offering to take fines and demerit points for payment, much of it on social media and marketplace listings. It is not a grey area and it is not a loophole. It is a false nomination plus a false statutory declaration, and where money changes hands the higher declaration offence applies to both sides.
- The person who nominates commits the false nomination offence and the false declaration offence.
- The person who accepts the points is a party to both, and is also accepting a fine and demerit points for an offence they did not commit, on their own licence and their own record. If those points suspend them, the suspension becomes their problem and their appeal.
- Payment makes it worse, not safer. Obtaining or seeking a benefit from the false declaration lifts the maximum from five years to seven.
- It is being looked for. Transport for NSW, Revenue NSW and NSW Police have run joint work specifically targeting these arrangements, and marketplace listings are not private.
The same analysis applies to the version nobody thinks of as a trade: a parent nominating themselves for a P plater who cannot afford the points, or an employee taking a fine for a colleague who is close to a suspension. The motive is better. The offence is identical.
How they are found
Why these do not stay hidden
People assume a nomination is accepted at face value and never revisited. Nominations are checked, and the things that give them away are ordinary.
- The nominated person was overseas, in hospital, at work or on camera somewhere else at the time.
- The nominated person does not hold a licence, holds a foreign licence, or has never been in the state.
- The same person is nominated repeatedly across unrelated vehicles, which is the pattern that identifies the point sellers.
- A phone or seatbelt detection image shows the cabin, and the person in it is not the person named.
- The nominated person, once contacted, simply says it was not them. This is the most common way these unravel, and it happens as soon as the arrangement sours.
If it has already happened
What to do now
The distance between an honest mistake corrected promptly and a deliberate falsehood defended for a year is enormous, in how the matter is dealt with administratively and in how a court sentences it. Which of those this becomes is still, at this point, within your control.
Say nothing further
Do not send another declaration, do not have the person you named write anything, and do not answer questions about it until you have advice. Additional documents are additional offences.
Work out what is actually true
Some nominations are wrong rather than false. A genuine error about which of two family members was driving, corrected with evidence, is a different matter entirely and is treated as one.
Correct it properly
Where a correction is the right course, it is made once, in the right form, with the supporting material attached. Vehicle logs, rosters, travel records and toll data usually settle it.
Take the original fine on the chin
Whatever the offence was, it is smaller than what has been built on top of it. Getting back to a position where the worst outcome is the original notice is a good result.
If you are the person who was named and did not do it, you are not the offender, but you do have a problem to deal with and a deadline attached to it. Come and see us before you sign anything to help anybody.
How we help
Why these matters need a lawyer early
Stopping the escalation
Most of the damage in these matters is done after the first mistake. The single most valuable thing we do is stop the next document being sent.
We have been on the other side
Our team includes former prosecutors. We know how a false nomination is assessed once it leaves Revenue NSW, and what representations actually change the outcome.
Fleets and corporate exposure
Company nomination failures carry the largest fines and can put the registration at risk. We fix the immediate problem and the record keeping that caused it.
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
False nominations: your questions answered
Is it really illegal for my husband to take my points?
Yes, and for both of you. There is no family exception. A declaration naming a person who was not driving is a false nomination and a false statutory declaration regardless of the relationship, and the fact that no money changed hands does not make it lawful. It may well make a difference to sentence. It does not make a difference to whether an offence was committed.
What if I honestly got it wrong?
Then it is not a false nomination. The offence requires knowledge or recklessness, so a genuine mistake about which of two people was driving is not it. What matters is what you do when you realise. Correct it promptly, with evidence, and it is usually dealt with administratively.
I really do not know who was driving. What then?
There is a defence where you did not know and could not with reasonable diligence have found out. It requires you to have actually made enquiries and to be able to show what you did. Saying nothing and hoping is not the defence and will simply produce a fail to nominate charge.
I have been nominated for something I did not do. What do I do?
Do not pay it. Paying is an admission and the points go on. Deal with it before the due date, in writing, and get advice, because this often means someone has used your details and there may be more than one notice coming. Your options on the notice itself, and the deadlines attached to each, are on our infringement notices and fines page.
Will I get a criminal record?
The nomination offences are fine only offences, but a conviction is still a conviction. The declaration offences carry imprisonment and are treated as offences of dishonesty, which is a serious problem in any licensed or regulated occupation. A court can still deal with a matter without recording a conviction in the right case, and that is what a properly prepared application is aimed at.
Can I just withdraw the nomination?
Not unilaterally, and how a correction is put matters a great deal. Get advice on the form of it before anything is lodged, because the document you send becomes evidence either way.
Talk to us before you send anything else
Email us the notice, any nomination that has been lodged, and any correspondence from Revenue NSW. We will tell you where this sits, what can still be corrected, and what to do about the original fine. 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.