A council in London has managed to rake in £442,000 in fines thanks to a single bus lane, prompting outrage from drivers…
A Lucrative Bus Lane
Harrow Council has managed to make £442,363 between April 2019 and the end of 2021; and it’s all thanks to a solitary bus lane. Just 39ft long and located in on Northolt Road in South Harrow, the bus lane has seen just shy of 8,000 motorists caught out in less than two years.
The staggering figures were revealed after motorist Geoffrey Ben-Nathan submitted a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to Harrow Council. He’d run afoul of the bus lane himself, but managed to successfully appeal his fine. He claimed that he’d accidentally entered the lane, as road signage was unclear. Since overturning fine, Mr Ben-Nathan has called on the council to improve the signage; but has suggested that it’s unlikely the council will act, given the revenue being generated via the fines.
Irate Drivers
Mr Ben-Nathan also had some other suggestions for the council. He said, “one answer is that councils be put under a statutory duty to flag up all contraventions which are so many per cent above average: be they contraventions in entering a bus lane or contraventions at any other location”. He added, “morally, the onus must be on councils to prevent motorists from contravening their motoring regulations. This is not the case at the moment”.
Nicholas Lyes, the RAC’s head of roads policy, also commented on the troublesome bus lane. He said, “signage and road layout are crucially important when it comes to enforcing any bus lane, and anywhere a local authority is dishing out a high volume of penalty charge notices for a single location should sound alarm bells about the design of the scheme”.
Nevertheless, in a statement Harrow Council said that “the signage here is clear and in accordance with the law”.
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