Category Archives: Moving Traffic Offences

How Councils Rake in Money from Fines

Posted on by
Reply

Many local councils are generating millions of pounds in fines from LTNs and moving traffic offences. They use this as a source of income due to the financial pressures they are under.

A good example is Hammersmith & Fulham in London who are getting £1 million a month from a single Low Traffic Neighbourhood (LTN) scheme. This is from camera enforced PCNs which numbered 341,000 in 11 months. Local M.P. Greg Hands launched a petition against the scheme which got over 5,000 signatures and there is widespread local opposition.

The scheme creates enormous difficulties for local residents and businesses as delivery vehicles will often get fined. There are some exceptions for local residents and taxis but the number of fines issued tells you that the council has a very strong financial incentive to promote this scheme regardless – see  https://www.lbhf.gov.uk/transport-and-roads/clean-air-neighbourhoods/south-fulham-clean-air-neighbourhood-project

Telegraph article:  https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/30/hammersmith-fulham-council-ltn-pcn-fines-one-million-month/

Comment: this way of raising money using the excuse of the need to reduce air pollution is unprincipled and immoral. Sadiq Khan has been doing this with the ULEZ scheme and local councils should not be using camera enforced schemes to generate income. There is little evidence of environmental benefit and most of the people fined are visitors who get caught through ignorance of the scheme, or get routed through it by satnav systems.

Roger Lawson

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Drivers_London

You can “follow” this blog by entering your email address in the box below.  You will then receive an email alerting you to new posts as they are added.

Surge in Driving Fines

Posted on by
1

The London Evening Standard have reported that there has been a big surge in driving fines fuelled by the increase in Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs). Some 7.4 million PCNs were issued in London last year – an increase of 41% on the prior year.

There are only 2.6 million cars registered in London so you can see that the number of PCNs issued per vehicle is very high even allowing for some PCNs being issued to drivers from outside the London area. These enormous numbers of PCNs are of course now being caused by the desire of some local councils to raise money from fines by installing camera systems to monitor LTNs and School Streets.

Boroughs such as Islington, Hackney and Lambeth are the leaders in this unethical practice but Transport for London (TfL) themselves issued 329,000 fines for infringement of bus lanes, yellow box junctions and other moving traffic offences.

The Covid epidemic was used as an excuse to implement LTNs without prior public consultation as temporary measures but have been made permanent as councils realised how much money they could extract from motorists using camera systems.

Standard report: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/driving-parking-tickets-penalty-fines-increase-low-traffic-zones-ltn-b1032725.html

You can “follow” this blog by entering your email address in the box below.  You will then receive an email alerting you to new posts as they are added.

The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act is Now Law

Posted on by
Reply

The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts (PCSC) Act is now law as it has received Royal Assent. This Act includes the strengthening of police powers to tackle non-violent protests that have a significant disruptive effect on the public or on access to Parliament. For example demonstrations by such groups as Extinction Rebellion have closed roads, delayed emergency services and incurred millions of pounds in costs to the police. They have also been exceedingly noisy in some cases thus creating disruption and annoyance over a wide area.

The new Act does not stop peaceful demonstrations but it will hamper the activities of extremist organisations who wish to grab attention to their cause by creating disruption. It is surely therefore a positive move to clarify and reinforce the law in this area.

There are many aspects of criminal law tidied up in this Act but one negative aspect is Clause 67 of the Bill which provides a statutory footing for the charging of fees for courses offered as an alternative to prosecution for fixed penalty offences. It gives the police discretion to offer an educational course to a motorist who has committed a low-level driving offence. This is as an alternative to a fixed penalty or prosecution and avoids liability to a criminal conviction, penalty points and higher fine.

As we have pointed out this for the first time makes it legal for the police to solicit a payment to waive prosecution and can be used by the police to raise funds – for example to generate more offences by financing more speed cameras. See https://www.freedomfordrivers.org/speed-awareness-courses for more information.

The new Act also increases the maximum sentence for the offences of causing death by dangerous driving and causing death by careless driving when under the influence of drink or drugs to a life sentence. There is also the creation of a new offence of causing serious injury by careless, or inconsiderate, driving. The offence is committed if a person causes serious injury by driving a car or other mechanically propelled vehicle on a road or other public place without due care and attention or without reasonable consideration for other road users. But the drafting is ambiguous. What is meant by “serious injury” and it could mean that a simple driving error can result in someone being sentenced to a custodial sentence.

These changes are unprincipled in nature and should not have been made.

Government explanation of the Act: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/police-crime-sentencing-and-courts-bill-2021-factsheets/police-crime-sentencing-and-courts-bill-2021-protest-powers-factsheet

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Drivers_London

You can “follow” this blog by entering your email address in the box below.  You will then receive an email alerting you to new posts as they are added.

Using PCNs to Raise Council Funds – It’s Unethical

Posted on by
1

With local Council budgets under severe strain, they have looked at raising money by maximising PCNs being issued. These can be issued for breaches of bus lanes, no entry signs in Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs), infringement of yellow box junctions, illegal turns and for a number of other reasons.

Many millions of pounds are now being raised by some London Councils in this way, totally unethically, particularly by those Councils who are prejudiced against motor vehicle use. The number of fines issued by the London boroughs and TfL in 2020-2021 are given in this document: https://www.freedomfordrivers.org/_files/ugd/84d4d3_2184322bb2af44c18e1a16ce65e3fbf6.pdf

You can see that the worse London councils are Croydon, Hackney, Hammersmith & Fulham, Islington, Lewisham and Newham with a large number issued by Transport for London (TfL) also.

In Lewisham for example, after the LTN was introduced in Lee Green the Council issued 87,443 PCNs for infringement in Dermody Road between August 2020 and January 2022. These would have been picked up by camera enforcement systems. There were also 5,462 issued in Ennersdale Road, 12,002 in Manor Lane and 19,961 in Manor Park.

The campaign group One Dulwich also reported these figures: “More than £6.6 million paid to Southwark in fines. An FOI to Southwark has revealed that 123,853 fines were issued in 2021 to vehicles going through the timed closures on Burbage Road, Turney Road, Dulwich Village and Townley Road, raising a total so far of £6,623,517. Once all fines are paid (calculating 123,853 PCNs at the lower rate of £65 each), the total will be more than £8 million. With this kind of annual revenue, the financial benefits of continuing with the Dulwich Streetspace scheme must have been part of Southwark’s thinking”.

You can see now why Councils are so keen to install camera-based enforcement systems – they are actually money spinners because the money they generate exceeds the cost of installation and operation.

A recent example is a proposal from Lewisham Council to introduce up to five yellow box junctions in a recent “Budget Reductions Report” to the Sustainable Development Select Committee. The capital cost would be £100,000 but the first-year rate of return is given as £150,000, i.e. there is a payback in under one year. It’s a highly profitable measure! But there is no evidence that such box junctions actually improve the flow of traffic.

In summary, LTN schemes enforced by cameras are not about reducing vehicle use, improving road safety or improving the environment. They are about generating money in a totally unethical way.

The approach by local councils and the number of PCNs issued very much depends on the policies set by Councillors. Please bear that in mind when voting at the forthcoming May Council elections.

You can “follow” this blog by entering your email address in the box below.  You will then receive an email alerting you to new posts as they are added.