Former Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police Christine Nixon has been caught driving an unregistered vehicle. She was pulled over along the Mornington Peninsula Freeway during a police traffic operation in Melbourne on Tuesday.

She claimed that the unpaid registration was just an oversight, and that it was paid before she moved her car off the freeway. She was issued with a fine for $722 for the oversight, a police rep told Fairfax Radio.

She praised the police for their handling of the situation.

Ms Nixon, 60, was the first female Chief Commissioner in any Australian state police, and had held on to the position for the Victoria Police from 2001 to 2009.

She was due to retire in late March 2009, but had to leave her post earlier in February of the same year to take on the responsibility for the Victorian Bushfire Reconstruction and Recovery Authority.

As the chief commissioner, she was criticised for her actions during the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires on February 7.

She was questioned by the Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission on her decision to go to her morning hairdressing appointment, to a meeting with her biographer, and to a dinner with her friends while the fires killed 173 people and displaced more than 7000.

“It was not my job to swoop in and take control,” she explained. “When you have good people who are more skilled in emergency management than I am, you let those people do the job.”

She stood down from her position in July 2010.