Despite various state road authorities deploying a range of new AI-powered cameras to detect offending drivers, one local court has dismissed an AI-detected case after determining no offence was committed.
According to Astor Legal principal lawyer Avinash Singh, his client was allegedly detected by an AI camera using his mobile phone along the Pacific Motorway in Queensland on 25 June 2025.
Singh said the photos “clearly showed” his client was not touching his phone, despite the camera capturing photos of the alleged offence.
“The judge accepted our arguments that the prosecution could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was touching the phone,” Singh said in a May 2026 media statement.
The driver’s $410 fine was dismissed following the court’s decision. While authorities are betting big on this new road safety technology, thousands of drivers in one state have had their AI-assisted camera fines rescinded.
WA’s Department of Transport has recently waived approximately 2000 AI-assisted seatbelt offences equating to more than $1 million in withdrawn fines.
But WA’s Road Safety Minister Reece Whitby reaffirmed that the rescinded offences made up only a minority of the overall offending identified by these AI cameras, as the total number of detected offences was 53,000.
“Less than 4 per cent of offences, seatbelt offences in particular, have been overturned. It means that most people are copping the fines and realise that they’re doing the wrong thing,” Minister Whitby told ABC Radio Perth.
Minister Whitby said the state’s transport department has approved 60 per cent of AI road camera infringement appeals.
“We’re seeing offences being picked up at scale we’ve not seen before because the cameras actually look down into the [car] cabin,” he said.
“If you do have a legitimate issue and think you’ve been wronged and it’s unfair, you will get a fair crack, and you will be considered."
How do you contest an AI camera fine?
While it's hard to argue with photographs, Singh said there are some credible defences drivers can use to contest the infringement, though they depend on individual circumstances.
He said the general mobile phone exemptions still applied for AI-detected camera offences.
"These include if the phone is used to make or receive an audio phone call or to perform an audio playing function, and the body of the phone is secured in an approved mounting affixed to the vehicle. The phone can also be used as a GPS while driving if it is in an approved mount," Singh told Drive.
He said he had seen "numerous examples of erroneous AI-issued traffic fines" and anticipates that road rules will eventually change to accommodate the inaccuracy of some AI cameras.
"We expect to see laws around AI-detected fines being amended by acknowledging the lower reliability of AI-detected images," he said.
"This may be inserting a provision into the law that if there is any doubt about what an AI image shows, it should be resolved in favour of the driver. This will significantly reduce the backlog in the courts, where they are currently overwhelmed with the number of unreliable AI images being used to prosecute drivers."
Ethan Cardinal graduated with a Journalism degree in 2020 from La Trobe University and has been working in the fashion industry as a freelance writer prior to joining Drive in 2023. Ethan greatly enjoys investigating and reporting on the cross sections between automotive, lifestyle and culture. Ethan relishes the opportunity to explore how deep cars are intertwined within different industries and how they could affect both casual readers and car enthusiasts.
