Pensioner who owes $340,000 in traffic fines paying off debt $50 a fortnight
A TRAFFIC fine dodger, who owes a staggering $340,000 in penalties, is on a payback plan that requires her to live to the age of 326 to clear the debt.
A TRAFFIC fine dodger, who owes a staggering $340,000 in penalties, is on a payback plan that requires her to live to the age of 326 to clear the debt.
The female pensioner, 65, on a $50 fortnightly repayment schedule, is one of 34 South Australians individually owing more than $100,000 in fines. Thirty-two are on government payment plans.
The other two have been named and shamed on the Attorney-General’s Department Fines Enforcement and Recovery website.
Fines Enforcement and Recovery unit director John Ovenstone on Monday told the budget and finance committee that the biggest defaulter’s penalties date back two and a half years, when she began driving unregistered and, later, unlicensed.
“Whether it’s one fine or 300 fines, it’s the behaviour. She kept driving even though the police were talking to her regularly and she kept delaying the fines,” Mr Ovenstone said.
Mr Ovenstone said he had seized and sold the woman’s car for $3000 — which he said wouldn’t cover the costs of doing so — to “get her off the road”.
He also seized the pensioner’s caravan, but returned it to her so she would continue to have a roof over her head.
“If I take the caravan it would make a negligible difference to the debt but she would become homeless,” Mr Ovenstone said.
Mr Ovenstone — the director of the Fines Enforcement and Recovery unit — said he would “have to make a call” on the woman’s debt.
“I think it will take her well into [the year] 3000-something by the time it’s cleared, and she’s not going to live that long,” he said.
Mr Ovenstone said it would be “inappropriate” to provide further information about the woman, but said people who continued to reoffend and pose a risk to public safety would be referred to SAPOL for investigation.
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The name and shame register features the names of 81 debtors who had evaded the AGD’s efforts to contact them and owe more than $10,000 in fines — with nine having racked up debts of more than $50,000.
Two owe more than $100,000 — Ali Faraj owes $153,000 for unlicensed used-car deals and home renovations and Jason Keith Richards debt equals $106,371.
Mr Ovenstone said the name and shame website — set up in 2014 — was helping to recover large debts.
“Since the unit began operating, the total dollar amount under management — in other words, where a debtor has either entered into a payment plan or some other arrangement — has increased from 62 per cent to more than 90 per cent,” he said.
Mr Ovenstone said the way the AGD allocated fines meant people on such low payment plans may never repay the total amount they owed.
“Sometimes the fine itself is never addressed because if someone keeps incurring a fine the first payment that comes in goes to the Victims of Crime levy and the second allocation goes to any compensation order that might exist and then we get to the fine and then any costs that have been added to it,” he said.
“So if a person keeps incurring fines and they’re on a very low payment schedule or if they can’t pay anymore, they may never pay the fine.”
