RR Phantom
Location : Wasted Space
Job/hobbies : Cayman Islands Actuary
 |  Subject: OZschwitz: RTA blamed for death  Sun Mar 20, 2011 2:10 am | |
| NATHAN ADAM GORDON was due to face court next month to be sentenced for driving while disqualified.
He will never get the chance.
The 32-year-old died from head injuries earlier this month - just days after being found with his pushbike in a
He had been suspended from driving for 25 years, but his grieving family blame a bungle by the Roads and Traffic Authority over a list of unpaid speeding fines for his death. They say the RTA refused to recognise he was not responsible for the offences - two of which occurred in different parts of NSW on the same day.
''Nathan was driven to break the law by driving unlicensed by bureaucracy gone mad, a system set up by the RTA that refuses to recognise who has rightfully incurred fines,'' his lawyer, former magistrate Roland Day said.
Mr Gordon had been a law-abiding citizen, who ran a car hire business in Newcastle for three years, Mr Day said.
His mother Sue said that as part of the business her son had to register all the vehicles in his small fleet in his name. Then fines began to roll in for red-light camera, speed camera and unpaid toll offences committed by people who had hired his cars.
''You would not believe the amount of people who hire cars who do not pay tolls or drop the cars off not knowing they have run a red light or been booked for speeding,'' Mrs Gordon said from her home at Gorokan on the central coast.
''Every time Nathan would fill out a statutory declaration telling the RTA who … had hired the car,'' she said.
Then three years ago Mr Gordon sold the business but the new owners did not transfer the name of the vehicles' ownership. He began to incur fines for traffic offences for which he was not responsible.
Mrs Gordon said her son's letters and the statutory declarations sent to the RTA were ignored. As far as its records were concerned, he was the owner of the vehicles and had to be the driver committing the offences - even though on one day he was supposed to be driving one car in Albury and the other in Grafton.
Mr Day said his client's fines mounted up - to more than $10,000 - and Mr Gordon had his licence suspended for failure to pay them.
''Without a car and driver's licence he could not get a job. I estimated the cost of travelling to different courts around the state to fight the fines was more than $20,000, which he could not afford. He gave in and accepted it even though he was not to blame.''
But Mr Day said Mr Gordon had to drive without a licence to find work. He was charged four times for driving while disqualified.
''He had been suspended for 25 years and I told him [that] he would receive a jail term,'' Mr Day said.
''I told him to get a pushbike and that he would have to ride it for the next 25 years.''
On February 25, Mr Gordon was riding along the San Remo cycleway to his parents' home at Gorokan.
He was found lying beside the pushbike with serious head injuries. Police do not know why he fell from the bike. Mr Gordon, who was engaged to Tanaya Frew, died in the John Hunter Hospital on March 7.
His mother said the traffic infringement system oppressed and harassed innocent people.
''Nathan would be alive today if they believed him. The system needs to be changed.''
Mr Day said people would say Mr Gordon should not have driven when ordered not to, but ''the whole point of this matter is that the system seeks to impose liability for offences on people who are not legally responsible for those offences''.
In a statement, the RTA did not comment directly on Mr Gordon's case but said the safety of all road users is of the highest concern to the RTA. The RTA said it sympathised with the family for their loss.
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