Victoria's top traffic cop Ken Lay has admitted keeping his speeding fine secret during the Christmas period.
Mr Lay, who is the public face of the state's road safety campaign. was snapped by a camera driving 10km/h over the limit in a 70km/h zone in Tooborac, central Victoria on October 1.
He discovered he had been penalised three demerit points and received a fine of $245 by the second week of November.
But Mr Lay decided, with Chief Commissioner Simon Overland, to keep the infringement out of the public domain until after the state's drink and drug-driving campaign "Operation RAID" had completed.
"I spoke to the commissioner as soon as I became aware I'd been pinged," Mr Lay said on 3AW radio this morning.
"I recommended to him that I didn't want to be muddying the waters during our high-risk time.
"My view was that it just undermined the whole [Operation RAID] process."
The Deputy Commissioner admitted that he now risked damaging his credibility in two instances — firstly for the speeding incident and secondly for his silence — but said he was happy to "cop it" if it meant people paid more attention to the road toll operation.
"I guess what it has done is it has affected my credibility in ... January, it hasn't affected it when I'm fronting a campaign to try and keep people alive on our roads," he said.
"I knew I couldn't keep it secret, so the decision I needed to make was did I make it [public] mid-November or do I make it early January.
"No doubt I'll be criticised for it, but I think it was a sound decision."
The offence was Mr Lay's first traffic fine in 35 years on the road after he had been let off with a warning about five years ago for a low-level speeding incident.
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