The Government has moved to fix a flaw in the law around speed limits set by local councils, which could have let thousands of motorists escape fines.
Parliament last night passed retrospective legislation to ensure that speeding tickets "issued in good faith" would be legally valid after some local councils failed to renew their speed limit laws.
The problem arose due to confusion around legislative framework after changes were made to local government legislation in July 2002 and June 2006, as well as changes to transport legislation in April 2004, Local Government Minister Paula Bennett said.
Local Government New Zealand president Lawrence Yule says there shouldn't have been a lapse.
"It's a very recent issue, and in fact one council identified it and rather than spend a lot of time trying to understand how many councils were involved, the Government very quickly decided that they needed to fix this," says Mr Yule.
"It shouldn't have happened and some councils have interpreted [the law] in one way and some councils interpreted it in another way."
It is not known how many drivers or infringement notices were affected by the mix-up.
3 News / RadioLIVE
