You’d think with all of Australia’s vast expanse of endless roads, speeding would be something that was fairly harmless and enforced with leniency. Well, as the 23-year-old owner of this Subaru BRZ found out, that is not the case. In fact, it is so not the case, that this driver ended up getting over $10,000 in speeding tickets in only 11 minutes in his Subaru. 

A Subaru BRZ isn’t even that fast

According to The Drive, the Subaru BRZ driver was spotted by a police helicopter that watched him burn down the streets of Sydney. The BRZ is more in the Mazda Miata vein of cars; it is super nimble but not all that powerful. However, that didn’t stop the BRZ driver from getting the attention of the police chopper. 

The police helicopter followed and recorded the Subaru BRZ until the police on the ground could catch up with the speed demon. Once a squad car caught up to him and pulled him over, they took the driver’s information and noted that he was on a provisional license. Then, the police let him go until the helicopter could examine the footage. 

After the police let the BRZ scoot on its way, the police reviewed the footage and found some heavy violations. The local police department later posted on Facebook about the incident saying, “Highway Patrol officers reviewed the PolAir (helicopter) recording and were able to ascertain the driver of the Subaru BRZ exceeded the speed by not more than 10 km/h once, more than 10 km/h once, more than 20 km/h six times, more than 30 km/h twice, and more than 45 km/h twice.”

How did the speeding tickets add up to so much? 

After calculating all the fines for the violations, the New South Wales Police landed on a number. The police came out and said, “this would equate to $10,252 in monetary fines and a total of 50 demerit points in only 11 minutes of driving.”

According to The Drive, stacking fines like this is fairly common in Australia, but it is usually for more theatrical purposes. These exorbitant fines rarely actually get charged to a driver this way. In this case, the driver has actually been charged with “drive in a speed/manner dangerous to the public.”

How much can a speeding ticket cost? 

The maximum fine for the stated offense is only $2,200. However, the fines aren’t the only part of the deal. These charges can also come with a short stay in jail along with the fines, and by “short,” they mean up to nine months. There’s also a minimum disqualification period of one year for first-time offenders.

If a driver gets more charges of this nature, the penalties are further, with a maximum fine of $3,300 and potential jail time up to a full year. The minimum disqualification period also doubles and can extend out to a total of five years. 

I think it’s probably fair to say that the Australian police take speeding a bit more seriously than one might think. On top of police cars and helicopters, Australia is heavily ramping up its speed and red light cameras. For the time being, I’m sure Subaru BRZ driver will think twice about ripping around town again.