Wild reason mum copped $410 fine while in the passenger seat
Illiya was on her way home from a charity event with her husband on February 24, 2025 at Randwick Racecourse. At the time, the mum-of-two decided to skip the 7.30pm pumping she normally did for her seven-month-old baby.
'We don't often go out on a school night, but it was an event we really wanted to go to so we arranged a babysitter,' she told news.com.au.
'That night, I didn't breastfeed my seven-month-old. The babysitter gave him a bottle. I didn't want to pump at the function so I thought I'd pump in the car on the way home while my husband drove.'
She used a wearable cordless pump from the brand Bubka to do so. But, she was caught on camera for 'not wearing a seatbelt properly'.
'You can see in the photo I am wearing the seatbelt but it's a bit lower, under my boob, because of where the pump was,' she said.
The mother said she disputed the $410 fine but it was decided that the fine would be upheld.
'The lap portion of a seatbelt should lie across your hips and the sash should fall across your chest and mid-shoulder,' a letter response said.
'To ensure the safety of yourself and passengers, seatbelts should be adjusted firmly and lay flat with no twists in the webbing or fabric. The seatbelts should not be removed, even for a short period of time.
'The photos clearly show the passengers seatbelt was not positioned across their chest.'
Illiya paid the fine, but she did call the ruling 'strange'.
'I totally get if I was holding the baby or if the seatbelt wasn't on but it was,' she said.
Illiya said all she was trying to do was kill two birds with one stone as a busy mum on the move — she said you build your life around a pumping/feeding schedule, not the other way around.
'I was physically uncomfortable,' she explained.
'I just thought I wouldn't do the pump at 7.30pm because I was at a function — it was noisy and I didn't want to pull my boob out in front of everyone. I wanted to do it in the privacy of my own car.'
Illiya added it wasn't distracting her partner from driving, and when you need to pump, you simply have to. She said holding off on pumping can cause health issues such as clogged ducts, mastitis and infection.
She also said she had no doubt that other mums had also been caught out.
Alicia Segal, who co-founded Bubka with Ari Segal, told news.com.au that the issue was bigger than a seatbelt fine.
'While we will always support safety first when travelling in a car and the correct use of seatbelts, we think it's time to talk about how the way mums feed their bubs has evolved,' Ms Segal said.
'Feeding looks different now. Many mums follow a strict pumping schedule to maintain their milk supply, and sometimes that means expressing milk while travelling as a passenger. That's something our community and our systems need to be more supportive of.'
She said the company still said safety should be a priority, but mothers deserve clear and updated guidance on how to pump safely on the go. She said currently most are left to figure it out alone.
'That's not good enough,' she said.
'Our wearable breast pumps were designed for mums just like this one. She wasn't being careless; she was doing what mums have always done: feeding her baby, wherever she needed to be at the time.
'At Bubka, we've taken it the next level, our new Bubka Glow launching soon has a built in night light, so, as long as you're a passenger in the car and, of course, wearing your seatbelt correctly, mums will be able to switch on the light on their pump and check on their milk volume on the go.'
A Transport NSW spokesperson told news.com.au that rules around seatbelts had been used for 50 years because they saved lives.
'Wearing a seatbelt properly – low, flat and firm – doubles your chances of surviving a crash,' the spokesperson said.
'Tragically, in 2024 alone (preliminary data as of 29 July 2025), 33 people lost their lives in crashes because they weren't wearing an available seatbelt.
'Each one of these lives was someone's loved one – a parent, a child, a sibling, a friend. The impact on families and communities is devastating.
'We don't want to see any more lives lost on the road because of something that could have been prevented.'
Evidence suggests people are twice as likely to survive a car crash if they are wearing their seatbelt correctly.
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