ULEZ fines: London drivers owe staggering £218m in unpaid ULEZ fines as 1.3m tickets issued | My news from London

According to official figures, a further £218m is owed in unpaid ULEZ fines across London. The figures were revealed by a Freedom of Information (FOI) request, which revealed that more than 1.3 million Penalty Charges (PCNs) were issued to drivers between September 2023 and April 2024.

However, Transport for London (TfL) has admitted that 70% of these fines – worth hundreds of millions of pounds – have yet to be paid. In one stunning case, a motorist racked up more than 200 fines for a single non-compliant vehicle but paid none of the £47,682 he owed.

The FOI data also revealed that just £28.5m has been collected in fines so far. The ULEZ, or ‘ultra low emission zone’, was extended to cover all 32 London boroughs in August last year. This means drivers in the capital face a daily charge of at least £12.50 if their vehicle fails to meet emissions standards.

READ MORE: Hillingdon mum left traumatized after ULEZ vandalism ’causes car crash’

In response to the FOI request, TfL said that from September 26 last year to April 26 this year, a total of 1,348,938 ULEZ PCNs were handed out. These PCNs start at £180 but can be halved to £90 if settled in two weeks.

TfL confirmed that drivers paid 282,448 PCNs, totaling £28,539,158. However, TfL also admitted that a staggering 948,590 PCNs – 70.4% of all fines totaling a whopping £218,316,553 – remain unpaid by drivers. This leaves around 120,000 fines, which TfL have confirmed have been cancelled.

Transport for London (TfL) declined to provide figures on the repair costs incurred due to willful damage and vandalism to their cameras, which have been a target for blade runners since last year’s ULEZ expansion. These vandals, often armed with power tools, have targeted cameras, particularly in boroughs outside London.

The ULEZ initiative first started in April 2019 and saw a further extension in October 2021, followed by a further extension in August 2023.

Self-proclaimed parking fines expert Barrie Segal has expressed his shock at the number of unpaid ULEZ fines, saying he was “flabbergasted” by the figures. Segal, who runs ParkingTicketExpert.com and AppealNow.com and is the author of several books on ticket appeals, continued, “I’m surprised and would be interested to know how many of the PCNs have been appealed and how many have not. and how many went to the referee”.

Segal, whose expertise was demonstrated by Richard & Judy, encouraged drivers to appeal fines, particularly on technical grounds, as TfL could cancel the ticket just to avoid potential disputes. He said: “People don’t want to deal with it, but there are some technical issues that you can fight for. If you’re fighting a technical problem, TfL sometimes take the decision to say: ‘Only if the driver is right will we cancel the ticket’ If you think a fine is unfair because it wasn’t clear or the warning signs were insufficient , then it’s worth appealing.”

A TfL spokesman said: “Data shows that over 95% of vehicles seen in the ULEZ on a typical day are ULEZ compliant. ULEZ is not about making money. It will lead to cleaner air, while generating lower and lower net income, as was the case with the previous expansion in inner London, where people switched to greener vehicles.”

The spokesperson continued: “If a customer receives a Penalty Charge Notice (PCN), they can pay the penalty with a 50% discount within 14 days or have up to 28 days to pay the penalty in full or can challenge the PCN a declaration can be made on one of six grounds and TfL also takes mitigating circumstances into account and uses its discretion to make a decision, including overturning the fine issued after the extension to London.”

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