Public Defender: Motorist stung for ‘unregistered’ car despite fixing details online

A PAPERWORK glitch has cost Luke Fuda more than $2000 — and contributed to a staggering $80 million in revenue delivered to the state government each year.

Luke Fuda updated his rego details online but ended up $2000 out of pocket.

A PAPERWORK glitch has cost Luke Fuda more than $2000 — and contributed to a staggering $80 million in revenue delivered to the state government each year.

After moving house and buying a second-hand Volkswagen Golf last year, the photographer from Cobbitty contacted Roads and Maritime Services to change his ­address details and establish when his new car’s registration was due.

He was assured by RMS that if he updated his address details online, the registration papers would be sent to his new ­address when registration was due.

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But earlier this month Mr Fuda was pulled over by police and told he was driving an unregistered car. The registration had expired in January.

He was ordered to drive directly to the closest mechanic to obtain a “blue slip” and then straight to the closet Service NSW centre to register the car.

He was issued with three fines totalling $1950 — $650 each for driving an unregistered car, driving an uninsured car and driving with unpaid tax.

Luke Fuda is appealing against the fines.

In some ways Mr Fuda was lucky. NSW Police have the right to confiscate a car’s numberplates on the spot and seize the vehicle if it is unregistered.

The offence is taken very seriously by authorities because no registration means the car could be dangerously faulty.

In the case of a crash, not having compulsory third party (CTP) ­insurance could be catastrophic, with the driver facing a possible bill of hundreds of thousands of dollars to compensate ­injured passengers.

It was this potential scenario that deeply shocked Mr Fuda.

“I’m meticulous when it comes to paperwork,” he said.

“But to think about all the times I’ve had my little kids in the car — doing the daily daycare drop-off. If we’d been in a serious collision with children in the car, this issue would hold much larger ramifications.”

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Police had on file an address in Leumeah that Mr Fuda hadn’t lived at for 10 years. When he went to re-register the car that afternoon, Service NSW still had his old address in Harrington Park.

Because the car was out of rego for more than four months, he had to surrender his numberplates to RMS and purchase a new set for $106, on top of the usual $461 for registration and $510 for the CTP green slip.

It was an expensive day.

Mr Fuda is now appealing the fines after the initial response from RMS was that it was his personal responsibility, not the government’s, to ensure his car registration was up to date, ­regardless of any system failure ­involving updating contact details.

Mr Fuda says if the government had not scrapped the rego stickers system in 2013, such an oversight would never have happened.

In 2012, 52,250 people were fined for unregistered ­vehicles. In 2014 that number had jumped to 67,332. According to NSW State Revenue, 65,252 drivers were fined for the offence last year.