Foreign cars escape fines

More than 118,000 were caught committing motoring offences on CCTV in the past year - a massive rise over 2004 when only 3,690 were filmed.
But few are being brought to book.

Of the 118,526 caught on camera only 4,198 paid their fines, leaving 114,328 to get away with it.
Even the proportion of foreign-registered drivers who are traced and issued with a fine - and who then pay up - is falling.

In 2007 42 per cent of foreign-registered drivers who were sent a penalty notice for motoring offences paid up, compared to just 25 per cent in the year to 31 July 2008.

It means thousands are driving in bus lanes, speeding or dodging congestion and low emission zone charges with impunity because they are registered overseas and prove impossible to trace.

Experts warns that the boom in drivers dodging fines is costing London millions in lost revenue.

They say the boom is not simply caused by overseas motorists visiting London on holiday or even foreign truck drivers 'forgetting' to pay charges.

It is fuelled by drivers deliberately registering their cars abroad in a bid to escape justice.
Others are believed to have bring cars from overseas when they came to London in search of work. They then fail to re-register their cars with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency.

Jenny Jones, of the London Assembly Green Party, said: "It is a scandal that so many drivers are getting away with it; it is costing London a lot of money.

"We have known for some time that people are deliberately registering their cars abroad to avoid being detected and unfortunately that's continuing.

"It is bad for safety and - if we could get rid of them - it would help clear the roads.

"We would like to see the Met and Transport for London to be more vigilant on this issue. They have wardens out on the streets the whole time; they should make a habit of checking the legality of cars that they find with overseas number plates.

"The problem is that if drivers know they cannot be traced they will not bother to obey the rules and that has important safety implications for everyone."

The figures, from the mayor's office, show that since 2004 a total of 379,862 overseas-registered drivers have been filmed on CCTV committing motoring offences in London.

But only 36,226 of them have been brought to book and made to pay their fines.

A TfL spokesperson said: "TfL has a formal contract with Euro Parking Collections (EPC) for the recovery of unpaid penalties incurred by non UK registered motorists. EPC has, to TfL's knowledge, the most extensive access to vehicle data for foreign registered vehicles. Overall, where EPC can obtain the keeper information and issue a PCN to a foreign registered vehicle they regularly recover around 40 per cent of the penalties issued.

"TfL is a lead partner of the multi-agency SPARKS (Shared Parking and Registered Keeper Information Service) programme, which is lobbying government at UK and EU level to ensure cross-border traffic enforcement is included in future legislation.  Currently there is no UK or EU legislation that requires EU member states to provide authorities such as TfL with access to the keeper information of vehicles registered in their country.

"TfL continues to work very closely with our European debt recovery agency to expand access to the keeper databases held in EU member states and ensure that we enforce as effectively as possible until a permanent solution to this issue is found."