Speeding tickets earn £250,000 every day!!

The Government stands accused of "milking" motorists to raise £88 million a year in revenue - with little apparent impact on road safety. Meanwhile, The Telegraph can reveal that the number of speed cameras across Britain is about to soar further. At least six new designs, which will take digital pictures and link to a control centre wirelessly, are set to be approved by the Home Office within months. The proliferation of cameras renews fears of "Big Brother Britain". Overall, drivers have been hit for almost a billion pounds in speeding fines in the last decade with at least two tickets handed out every minute. Some police forces have seen a thirteen-fold increase in the number of fines handed out. David Ruffley, the Tory police reform spokesman, who obtained the latest figures, said: "Motorists have been treated as a cash cow and milked by a Labour Government desperate to fund a decade of spend, spend, spend. No wonder cameras on our roads are so unpopular with the British motorist. "What has Labour done with this £840 million milked from the motorist? How much is actually put back into alternative road safety measures that do not involve speed cameras like cracking down on the scourge of uninsured drivers?" Figures a total of 14.7 million speeding tickets have been handed out since 1997, raising some £840 million in the process. It comes a week after it emerged speeding motorists face having to pay increased fines to fill a funding gap for victims of crime, with plans to impose a surcharge on fixed penalties. A total of 1,462,235 speeding fines were handed out to drivers in England and Wales in 2007 - the most recent data available. At £60 each, that raised some £87,734,100 for Government coffers - the equivalent of £240,367 a day. The number of tickets handed out was double the 712,753 issued in 1997, while the income raised was treble the £28.5 million handed over in that year, when fines were £40 each. Matthew Elliott, Chief Executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "The fact that more speeding fines are handed out every year suggests that speed cameras are more about raising revenue than reducing speeds on the roads. "Fining anyone should be about justice, not fundraising." Some 38 police forces, out of a total of 43, saw the number of tickets issued increase over the decade, including two which saw a thirteen fold increase. Fines in Warwickshire increased from 1,857 in 1997 to 27,468 in 2007 while Northamptonshire issued 3,722 fines in 1997 but 48,833 ten years later. Nottinghamshire, Surrey and the West Midlands saw increases of six, five and four fold respectively. Separately, Lancashire police force were found to have issued 502,000 fixed penalty notices for speeding since 2001 - compared to just two warnings to motorists being given in the past six years. Nigel Evans, the Tory MP for Ribble Valley, who uncovered the figure, said that police were using drivers as "cash machines". The speed-camera partnerships - made up of councils, police and the courts - do not receive the money from fines, instead it goes in to a central fund which is redistributed in road safety grants to local councils. According to the latest Government figures, covering 2007, the number of people killed on Britain's roads were at their lowest level since records began with 2,940 fatalities, representing a seven per cent fall on the previous year. But these statistics have been disputed by critics of the speed camera programme, because they are based on figures compiled by the police, rather than hospital admission statistics, which suggest that the number of serious injuries have remained largely unchanged. A spokesman for the RAC Foundation said: "The basic issue is tragically simple. In 2007, a breaking of the speed limit was a factor in 342 fatal road accidents. We have speed limits to protect road users. "If motorists break these limits then they are also breaking the law and are liable to penalties, but what the authorities must do is ensure speed limits are correctly set in the first place. They have to be about making our roads safer, not hindering mobility or trying to catch people out to raise extra revenue." The next generation of cameras, set to be approved by ministers, will be far cheaper to run because they are digital and wireless - removing the need to rely on film which has to be collected by traffic officers. A Department for Transport spokeswoman said: “Safety cameras are there to save lives, not make money. Independent research has shown there are 1,745 fewer deaths and serious injuries at camera sites each year - and local authorities use them where they believe they are the best way to tackle local safety problems. The government is clear that the best safety camera is the one which takes no fines at all, but succeeds in deterring drivers from speeding.”

Wall of text - Do not want.

....and lets not forget bus lanes, i forgot that southampton row wasnt motorbike friendly, realised my mistake and got out the lane....£60 , and i was in it according to them for 4 ,yes 4 seconds.

camden yer gits of the highest order!

[Red Herring]

Sorry mate but if you came on here looking for an argument or discussion on speed cameras you won't get one. We all know what they do, why they do it and who stands to win from it. After that we don't want anything to do with them.

Big fat hate speech... YER DOIN' IT WRONG!!! I can't read that **** without going into a coma and yeh, we're all out of ideas when it comes to arguing about mr and mrs Gatso.

i read it all, everyone know the camera's are there for making money. people spend to much time if there is a camera there looking at there speedo's then they do looking at the road

I can't be botherd to read all that!

Get off ur puter n on bike!!!!

At the end of the day they paint them bright yellow and the vans have massive reflective shevrons on the back of them.

It's easy really don't speed round town, save it for the nsl's n jus watch out for the vans.

Originally Posted by Kaikoura

The Government stands accused of "milking" motorists to raise £88 million a year in revenue - with little apparent impact on road safety.

Meanwhile, The Telegraph can reveal that the number of speed cameras across Britain is about to soar further. At least six new designs, which will take digital pictures and link to a control centre wirelessly, are set to be approved by the Home Office within months. The proliferation of cameras renews fears of "Big Brother Britain".

Overall, drivers have been hit for almost a billion pounds in speeding fines in the last decade with at least two tickets handed out every minute. Some police forces have seen a thirteen-fold increase in the number of fines handed out. David Ruffley, the Tory police reform spokesman, who obtained the latest figures, said: "Motorists have been treated as a cash cow and milked by a Labour Government desperate to fund a decade of spend, spend, spend. No wonder cameras on our roads are so unpopular with the British motorist. "What has Labour done with this £840 million milked from the motorist? How much is actually put back into alternative road safety measures that do not involve speed cameras like cracking down on the scourge of uninsured drivers?" Figures a total of 14.7 million speeding tickets have been handed out since 1997, raising some £840 million in the process.

It comes a week after it emerged speeding motorists face having to pay increased fines to fill a funding gap for victims of crime, with plans to impose a surcharge on fixed penalties. A total of 1,462,235 speeding fines were handed out to drivers in England and Wales in 2007 - the most recent data available. At £60 each, that raised some £87,734,100 for Government coffers - the equivalent of £240,367 a day. The number of tickets handed out was double the 712,753 issued in 1997, while the income raised was treble the £28.5 million handed over in that year, when fines were £40 each. Matthew Elliott, Chief Executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "The fact that more speeding fines are handed out every year suggests that speed cameras are more about raising revenue than reducing speeds on the roads. "Fining anyone should be about justice, not fundraising."

Some 38 police forces, out of a total of 43, saw the number of tickets issued increase over the decade, including two which saw a thirteen fold increase. Fines in Warwickshire increased from 1,857 in 1997 to 27,468 in 2007 while Northamptonshire issued 3,722 fines in 1997 but 48,833 ten years later. Nottinghamshire, Surrey and the West Midlands saw increases of six, five and four fold respectively. Separately, Lancashire police force were found to have issued 502,000 fixed penalty notices for speeding since 2001 - compared to just two warnings to motorists being given in the past six years. Nigel Evans, the Tory MP for Ribble Valley, who uncovered the figure, said that police were using drivers as "cash machines". The speed-camera partnerships - made up of councils, police and the courts - do not receive the money from fines, instead it goes in to a central fund which is redistributed in road safety grants to local councils.

According to the latest Government figures, covering 2007, the number of people killed on Britain's roads were at their lowest level since records began with 2,940 fatalities, representing a seven per cent fall on the previous year. But these statistics have been disputed by critics of the speed camera programme, because they are based on figures compiled by the police, rather than hospital admission statistics, which suggest that the number of serious injuries have remained largely unchanged. A spokesman for the RAC Foundation said: "The basic issue is tragically simple. In 2007, a breaking of the speed limit was a factor in 342 fatal road accidents. We have speed limits to protect road users. "If motorists break these limits then they are also breaking the law and are liable to penalties, but what the authorities must do is ensure speed limits are correctly set in the first place. They have to be about making our roads safer, not hindering mobility or trying to catch people out to raise extra revenue." The next generation of cameras, set to be approved by ministers, will be far cheaper to run because they are digital and wireless - removing the need to rely on film which has to be collected by traffic officers. A Department for Transport spokeswoman said: “Safety cameras are there to save lives, not make money. Independent research has shown there are 1,745 fewer deaths and serious injuries at camera sites each year - and local authorities use them where they believe they are the best way to tackle local safety problems. The government is clear that the best safety camera is the one which takes no fines at all, but succeeds in deterring drivers from speeding.”

Ive tried to break it up a little. Might help.

Basically it is saying we are cash cows for Labour being crap... which tbh we all know.

Lets hope when they are gone this changes, but I wont be holding my breath. They need to put decent speed limits on roads, but they will never raise them so it wont happen. Fail fail.

Cheers.

[dizzyblonde]

Greek... the ministry of defence just don't give you enough to do in a day

OK, so why for one day, or maybe a week, doesn't everyone stop getting caught speeding!! It's not hard you know.