" 200,000 drivers evade speed camera justice "
More than 200,000 speeding drivers have
escaped prosecution in London in the past year, damning new figures show.
Less than half of the 360,000 motorists caught
by speed cameras paid the £60 fine while the remaining 205,000 drivers either
refused to pay or hid from the law.
The figures, from the London Safety Camera
Partnership, compare poorly to other areas such as Kent and Bedfordshire which
boast a 100 per cent prosecution rate.
Road experts and politicians today blamed the
figure on poor government records and an increase in the number of false number
plates being used - making motorists harder to trace. They also blamed the
justice system for failing to set aside court time for speeding drivers,
allowing thousands of offenders to get off by simply refusing to pay.
Jenny Jones, of the London Assembly Green
Party, condemned the failure to prosecute speeders as "an insult to all the
Londoners who are killed or injured through speeding, as well as to all those
drivers who stay within the speed limit".
She said: "Bus lane offenders in London are
almost twice as likely to pay up as people who have been caught speeding." Paul
Watters, the AA's head of roads and transport policy, said the situation was
unfair on honest, traceable, drivers.
He said: "It seems that once again, motorists
who are legally and honestly registered are subsidising drivers who purposely
seek to evade the law." He claimed the problem had been aggravated by road
charging in the capital which had prompted a rise in people using false number
plates.
Ms Jones believes the solution to the problem
is to "outsource" the administration of London's speeding fines to neighbouring
regions. An internal Metropolitan Police Authority report has highlighted the
need for more staff in the "back office" to process them.
The LSCP - a consortium of Transport for
London, the court service and police, which is responsible for administrating
the fines - agrees more staff are needed but Ms Jones says it is not clear when
this will happen.
A LSCP spokesperson said: "The London Safety
Camera Partnership is working to increase the number of people who pay fines for
speeding offences.
A lack of court time has further hindered our
efforts to increase the number of prosecutions for offences.
"The recent fall in the conversion rate of
penalties is due to the introduction of speed awareness courses, which enable
offenders to take a course rather than be prosecuted."
Since March last year the number of
magistrates court "spaces" has been increased by 33 per cent.
The Mayor has also confirmed that the idea of
outsourcing fine processing is also being considered.
He wrote: "This will enable the police to
target their resources on the policing element and track down more of those
drivers who systematically choose to ignore the ticket."
Despite the Met's inability to fine more
speeding drivers, the number of speed cameras is set to rise to an alltime high
in London, an internal MPA report reveals. It rose from 268 in 2000 to 548 last
year. This year another 50 are expected to be put up at the roadside although it
is nowhere near the number demanded by road safety experts.
Source: [ thisislondon ]
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