'I got a $400 fine for pumping milk... as a passenger’

“I was either just about to or had just finished pumping both breasts. The seatbelt was on me normally the whole time I was actually pumping... so to have this happen was really shocking timing,” the young Brisbane mum reveals.

On the 90-minute drive home from a wedding, Rianna decided to multitask in the best way she knew how.

With her husband, Stephen driving, the Brisbane mum sat in the front passenger seat and pulled out her breast pump as her then 11-month-old son, Louis, peacefully slept in the back.

“I was still breastfeeding him three times a day and because I didn’t get a chance to pump at the wedding, I thought the drive home would be the best time to do it because we weren’t getting home until around midnight and I was already nice and full,” the 28-year-old tells Kidspot.

“If I waited until I got home, I would have had to stay awake another 30 minutes to get it done.”

Rianna never expected that something she has done numerous times before would have her suddenly breaking the law.

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“I had my dress unbuttoned - luckily I hadn’t exposed anything"

A month later, in May, 2022, Stephen received an expiation notice in the mail for $413 and three demerit points.

“I saw it and I said, ‘Oh, oh, you’ve got a fine!’” Rianna vividly remembers.

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“Then he opened it and went, ‘you’re kidding me’… because it was actually me who had done it.” 

Traffic cameras on the Pacific Highway on the Gold Coast had photographed Rianna wearing her seat belt “incorrectly”.

The mum-of-one had moved the seat belt strap to sit below her breasts for just a few moments while she was attaching and removing the pump, and adjusting her clothing.

“I had my dress unbuttoned - luckily I hadn’t exposed anything,” the mum says frustratingly.

“I was either just about to or had just finished pumping both breasts. The seatbelt was on me normally the whole time I was actually pumping, so to have this happen was really shocking timing.”

“I didn't know you could be fined for incorrectly wearing a seatbelt"

It was the very first seat belt-related infringement for Rianna and Stephen, who had no idea that such a fine even existed.

“When I saw the fine, I thought it had to be a mistake,” she says.

“I assumed that if you were wearing a seatbelt, then you would be fined - not for incorrectly wearing one. Stephen was fine about it, but I was more disappointed because I couldn’t be the one taking the points even though I was the one responsible.”

The experience has left Rianna, who is a “stickler for the rules”, very “disappointed”. 

“They’re taking a photo of a brief snapshot of time with no knowledge of the situation around it,” she reasons.

“It’s also extremely frustrating as a mum because you’re trying to do what’s best for your child and it hasn’t paid off.”

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“As a passenger, you should be able to do things like this"

Rianna doesn’t believe a first-time offence should attract any monetary or demerit fine at all.

“There should be a warning letter to the owner of the vehicle, explaining what the passenger has done wrong and that if you are caught in future, then a fine will follow,” she says, adding that she’ll never make the same mistake again.

“As a passenger, you should be able to do things like this but they’ve made it too difficult this way. Nothing is easy for mums.” 

Originally published as 'I got a $400 fine for pumping milk... as a passenger’