Earlier this month, Auckland barrister and solicitor Manoj Shukla did something most people issued a speeding ticket never bother to do: he read the paperwork behind the number. According to Indian Weekender, Shukla was issued infringement notice PV8606349 and, instead of paying it, checked three specific things against each other — the time on the notice against the officer's shift log and the light visible in the enforcement photo, the speed shown in the photo against the speed written on the notice, and the radar's certificate of accuracy against the actual antenna used to take the reading. Police withdrew the infringement, waived the demerit points, and refunded the fee Shukla had paid under protest while the dispute was live.
That outcome isn't a loophole and it isn't luck. It's what's supposed to happen when the paperwork behind a radar reading doesn't hold together — and it's worth understanding exactly which checks did the work, because they apply to any officer-issued speeding notice, not just this one.
The certificate has to match the device, not just exist
Every radar or laser unit Police use for speed enforcement needs a current Certificate of Accuracy — proof the specific device was tested and calibrated within the required period. Section 146 of the Land Transport Act 1998 lets Police produce that certificate as evidence of a device's testing and accuracy, but it's a certificate for a specific piece of equipment, identified by serial number or antenna, not a general assurance that "the radar was fine." Our own guide to disputing a speeding ticket covers this directly: the officer needs a current Certificate of Proficiency for the device they actually used, the device itself needs a current Certificate of Accuracy, and the absence of either — or, as in Shukla's case, a mismatch between the certificate produced and the antenna actually deployed — is fatal to the reading. You're entitled to ask for both documents before you decide whether to pay.
This is a different failure point from the camera errors we've written about before, where an NZTA deployment itself breaks the rules — a camera parked somewhere it shouldn't be, or a corridor that wasn't signposted properly. A radar certificate mismatch sits further back in the chain: it's not that the device read your car wrong on the day, it's that the document meant to prove the device could be trusted to read anyone's car correctly doesn't actually cover the unit in question.
The reading itself has to be built from three elements, not one
Certification isn't the only technical ground. The NZ Police Speed Detection Equipment Operators Manual requires three separate elements for a valid officer speed check: visual observation of the vehicle, audio (Doppler) confirmation from the device, and the numerical reading itself — and, as our dispute guide notes, "all three elements must be present for each speed check." An officer working in moving traffic, without a sustained line of sight, or with several vehicles close together in the beam, often can't establish all three. It's a separate line of attack from the certificate question, and it's worth checking on any radar or laser notice, camera notices aside (cameras don't use this method).
What the discrepancy in Shukla's case actually did
The detail that's easy to skim past is the speed figure itself: Shukla said the enforcement photo appeared to show 94km/h, while the notice recorded 96km/h. Two kilometres an hour doesn't sound like much, but NZ's speeding fines are banded — $30 to $630, rising in roughly 5km/h steps — so a reading that drifts across a band boundary can be the difference between what the notice charges and what the evidence actually supports. The number on a notice is a claim, not a given — exactly what our evidence review checks uploaded photos and PDFs against.
What to check before you pay a radar or laser ticket
- Does the time and location on the notice match the lighting and setting visible in any photo provided, and is it consistent with when the offence is alleged to have happened?
- Has Police produced a current Certificate of Accuracy for the specific device and antenna used — not just a generic certification statement?
- Does the officer hold a current Certificate of Proficiency for that equipment?
- Can all three tracking elements — visual, audio/Doppler, device reading — actually be established for this stop?
- Does the speed shown in any photographic evidence match the figure written on the notice, and does that figure sit in the fine band the notice charges you for?
None of this means every radar ticket is wrong. Most tickets, including officer-issued ones, are accurate, and paying a valid notice before the due date is still the right call — Police data shows roughly 50,000 notices waived a year across the whole system, out of hundreds of thousands issued, and no dispute success rate exists or should be assumed. What changed the outcome here wasn't an argument about fairness; it was Shukla asking for documents Police are required to produce, and finding they didn't line up.
Any dispute has to go in writing to the issuing authority before the due date on your notice — our guide to the Police Infringement Bureau covers what that letter needs. If you're not sure where your own notice stands, our free check reads it against grounds like these, and if a dispute doesn't succeed, our page on what happens after a decline covers the court-hearing option that's still available.
Sources: Indian Weekender, "When a speeding notice goes wrong!"; Land Transport Act 1998, s 146; NZ Police Speed Detection Equipment Operators Manual, as cited in our dispute-speeding-ticket guide; NZ Police infringement disposition data 2021–2025, released under the OIA (ref IR-01-26-24762), at getmeoff.co.nz/data. This post is general information, not legal advice; no outcome is guaranteed.