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Highway robbery: How speeding fines have
quadrupled to £200 a MINUTE under Labour...
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| Revenue from speeding tickets has almost
quadrupled to £200 a minute since Labour came to power. The increase has coincided with a massive expansion in the number of
speed cameras Home Office figures reveal that 1.8million tickets are being issued
each year, or 4,850 a day. In 1997, only 713,000 fixed penalty notices
were handed to drivers. This is an increase of 150 per cent in only a decade, and it has been
compounded by an increase in the value of fines - from £40 to £60 - in
2000. |
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| As a result, the total amount of cash raised has rocketed from £28.5million
a decade ago to £106.4million in 2006, the period covered by the latest
figures. Tory police reform spokesman David Ruffley, who obtained the data,
accused ministers of treating motorists like 'cash cows'. |
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| Mr Ruffley said: 'The number of tickets issued for speeding has
increased 150 per cent under Labour. 'Coupled with an increase in the basic speeding fine, this means
speeding tickets are now raising over £100 million a year for the
Government. 'Ministers need to tell us what they are doing with this £100million a
year taken from motorists. |
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| 'How much is actually put back into practical road safety that does not
involve speed cameras? 'Ministers' failure to answer that question confirms the view that for
this Government the British motorist is "a nice little earner".
'Is Labour using speeding tickets just to raise revenue rather than
making our roads safer? 'Using speed cameras as a cash cow undermines public confidence. The
Government needs to rethink ways of improving road safety, including
cracking down on uninsured drivers.' |
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| The huge hike in the number of motorists being
trapped is a direct result of an increase in the number of cameras. Britain is officially the speed camera capital of Europe.
There are 5,562 roadside speed cameras, compared with 1,935 as recently
as 2000. Over the same period, mobile speed traps have increased from just
173 to 2,373. Following a recent Government U-turn, speed-camera partnerships -
comprising councils, police and the courts - no longer receive a penny
from cameras. |
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| Instead, the millions generated go directly into Treasury coffers.
The
Government then makes road safety grants to local councils. The figures will stoke controversy at a time when Labour is seeking to
clobber 13million motorists with up to £2billion in green vehicle excise
duty (VED) taxes. The changes, which apply to more-polluting cars purchased since 2001,
will increase some road tax bills from £210 to £430. |
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| Matthew Elliott of the TaxPayers' Alliance
said: 'It's appalling that motorists who already pay huge amounts in VED
and petrol tax are being stung yet again by the aggressive growth of the
speed camera industry. 'The law is discredited and devalued when politicians use it more as a
way of making money rather than fighting crime.' |
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| Over the ten-year period since Labour won power, there were increases
in the number of speeding fines in 40 out of the 43 police forces in
England and Wales. In Nottinghamshire, there has been a nine-fold increase, from 4,625
fines in 1997 to 42,916 fines in 2006. In Warwickshire, the number has
increased 16-fold, from 1,857 fines in 1997 to 30,316 in 2006. |
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| Mr Ruffley's probing of the first ten years of Labour rule also shows
the number of fines for speeding imposed by magistrates increased by 16
per cent - from 130,605 in 1997 to 152,461 in 2006. These fines are up to £1,000 each, raising millions more in revenue.
But separate figures seen by the Daily Mail show there were fewer
prosecutions last year in two of the main categories which worry the
public. |
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| UK
Statistics. Showing the County by County figures for
Speeding Fine Revenues for the years 1997 and 2007... under the
Labour Government. |
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| Dangerous driving cases fell by 1,100 to 7,400 and prosecutions for
driving while drunk or on drugs were down from 103,500 to 101,400. Despite the huge increase in speeding fines, Britain's record for
reducing accidents is much worse than other countries. |
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| The European Transport Safety Council says that between 2001 and 2005
there was a mere seven per cent reduction in the number of road deaths in
Britain compared with a 25 per cent drop in Sweden and the Netherlands and
35 per cent in France. Experts warn that too much emphasis is now placed on using cameras to
trap motorists, at the expense of old-fashioned policing by officers in
cars. |
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| A Department for Transport spokesman said: 'Safety cameras are there to
save lives, not make money. 'Independent research shows there are 1,745 fewer deaths and serious
injuries at camera sites each year.' He added that some of the revenue came from police-issued tickets, not
cameras. |
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