Hundreds of Queensland drivers have been incorrectly stripped of their licenses and fined in a seatbelt camera fiasco. A "systems error" in assessing the images has existed since November 2021 but was only discovered at the end of last month and fixed.
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00:00 For almost two years, more than 1,800 Queensland drivers have been incorrectly penalised for
00:08 seatbelt offences.
00:09 I'm advised that 121 drivers are incorrectly serving suspensions and 632 drivers are currently
00:17 incorrectly serving good driver behaviour periods.
00:20 More than 1,000 others have already received excessive penalties.
00:25 This should never have happened.
00:26 I am very sorry to every person who has been impacted by this.
00:29 I can assure them that the Department of Transport and Main Roads will commence notifying all
00:34 impacted licence holders from today.
00:36 You will have people who may have lost their licence who shouldn't have.
00:40 They then may have lost a job that they can't get to.
00:43 That may have forced them not to be able to keep a roof over their head.
00:46 That can have implications on their family life.
00:48 A system design fault is being blamed for the bungle, with some drivers being incorrectly
00:54 penalised with double demerit points for camera detected seatbelt offences.
00:59 Although the cameras were working correctly, the fine issuing system automatically processed
01:05 the passengers as being under 16 and that is a double demerit penalty for drivers if
01:11 it's a second offence in a year.
01:14 Under fire yet again.
01:16 Transport Minister Mark Bailey has called for an urgent review into the penalties fiasco
01:22 and even he is urging people to consider their legal rights.
01:26 If you've lost your job and you've suffered a loss of income then you should be told to
01:31 be compensated for that, for the distress of the situation and also for extra costs
01:35 if you had to go and take Ubers or cabs all around the place.
01:39 The Minister says suspended licences won't be reinstated immediately and a hotline has
01:46 been set up for people impacted.
01:48 [BLANK_AUDIO]