Moving Traffic Offences

From September 2005 six London Boroughs were involved in a pilot scheme of enforcing moving traffic offences by CCTV cameras. These included yellow box junctions, banned turns, one way streets, routes restricted to certain types of vehicles, bus lanes and weight limits.

In principle we support enforcement of moving traffic offences. However many motorists including ourselves see the strict and overzealous enforcement by some local authorities as an easy way to rake in millions of pounds in fines from motorists. Very often motorists are fined where the signs or road markings are defective or even illegal, or where there has been only a very minor transgression of the rules. Worse still in instances where motorists have been fined illegally or incorrectly local authorities such as Camden council in London refuse to refund penalties already collected.

From April 2008 local authorities throughout the country were given powers to enforce moving traffic offences as the London pilot scheme had been judged a success! As of April 2009 20 London authorities were already enforcing in London and in the year had issued over 500,000 penalty charge notices (PCN’S) with a face value of over £50 million.

A few London authorities have issued disproportionately higher amounts of PCNs for moving traffic contraventions with Camden and Transport for London accounting for 38% of all London moving traffic contravention PCNs in 2008 - 09. We believe that some authorities saw this as yet another way to rake in revenue. Camden council issued around 17,000 fines in one street alone next to St Pancras station where they banned motor vehicles a couple of years ago.Their signs were however not clear and not illuminated and it was only after the adjudicator confirmed that their signage did not comply that they improved it. In the meantime they had issued around £1.7million pounds of fines! They would not refund motorists unless they wrote in even though they should not have been issued tickets in the first place. Camden’s approach is again illustrated with the example of Grafton Rd NW5. Grafton Rd was a popular rat run which Camden Council decided to restrict access during peak hours to help local residents. The closure was enforced using rising bollards which proved successful and no contravention of the restriction was possible, no tickets were issued to motorists and the residents were delighted at the reduction in vehicular traffic. Camden decided that it would be better to remove the rising bollards and replace them with a sign thereby allowing motorists to contravene the restriction on a regular basis and receive a £120 penalty charge notice (PCN) in the post for their mistake.! Camden have issued over 30,000 penalty charge notices at this location with a face value of around £3.4 million. At the same time residents have had to endure at least 30,,000 more motorists driving along their residential street. And the adjudicator has criticised Camden and upheld appeals against them for their poor signage but Camden are unrepentant.

Our section on moving traffic contraventions is the most comprehensive anywhere and is very easy to navigate. Simply click on the particular contravention on the drop down menu under the heading moving traffic contraventions on the left for details of each contravention and how to have your penalty charge notice (PCN ) cancelled. We even have scores of summarised adjudicator's decisions where motorists have won their appeals.

Moving traffic contravention tickets issued by London Councils:

2004 – 05     102,233 PCNs (6 authorities enforcing)
2005 – 06     389,055 PCNs (12 authorities enforcing)
2006 – 07     418,512 PCNs (19 authorities enforcing)
2007 – 08     611,130 PCNs (20 authorities enforcing)
2008 - 09      540,120 PCN's (20 authorities enforcing)

Next: How to have your Penalty Charge notice (PCN) cancelled

Top of page | Support us and join today! | Follow us: twitter.com/penaltycharge | Report a problem | v2.0