The use of cameras to catch speeding and parking offenders has increased
As the use of cameras to catch speeding and parking offenders grows, a total of 12 million fines were handed out last year to motorists in the UK.
According to new research, one third of drivers in the UK are given a fine every year and the number of remote cameras used by the police and local authorities have increased.
The RAC Foundation discovered that 12 million drivers every year are handed fines by either the police or local authorities, with eight million of those being represented by parking fines.
The use of cameras to catch speeding and parking offenders has increased – 12 million fines were handed out last year © Copyright Mat Fascione and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
According to the RAC Foundation, 2.5 million penalties were handed out for box junction and bus lane violations also.
Within the same 12 month period, one million speed and red light camera fines were handed out, as well as 500,000 penalties for late licensing and for having no insurance.
The total number however could be much higher when you take into account the amount of drivers who were offered educational courses instead of being handed a fine.
As well as the 12 million, around 1.2 million drivers were given speed awareness courses instead for being caught speeding, whilst 200,000 motorists were placed on driver awareness courses as an alternative.
The increased number of fines being handed out are down to the growing number of cameras in use believes the study. Back in 2011, 52% of all fixed penalty notices were detected by cameras and this rose to 74% in 2015, whilst private parking fines have increased three-fold since 2012.
The author of the report Dr Adam Snow, criminologist at Liverpool Hope University, believes that the use of cameras is likely to increase because police forces have been forced to cut back on the number of staff amid a dwindling budget.
According to previous research, the number of road police has declined by almost one third over the past ten years.
“To maintain its legitimacy, automatic enforcement must be viewed by the public as proportionate. While wrongdoing should be punished and not excused, a decline in frontline policing risks an imbalanced approach to enforcement. Millions of motorists are being caught by camera, often for arguably minor misdemeanours, whilst more serious and harmful behaviour goes undetected,” said Steve Gooding, director of the RAC Foundation.
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