He couldn’t be accused of speeding in the crawling city traffic, and he was insured, with a legal tax disc.
Within minutes of pulling over he found himself facing two grim-faced officials in dark suits demanding he give them more than £1,000 in unpaid fines or hand over his car keys and watch his company car be removed by a tow truck.
“They wanted £1,034 on the spot or they said they’d take the car,” said Bradley, 25, a security systems engineer from southeast London. “I refused point-blank to give them the keys. I didn’t know what they were talking about.”
Bradley had been approached by traffic bailiffs employed by a cash-hungry local authority to do what police have never done in Britain: demand money on the spot from motorists. The arrival of cheap, portable numberplate- recognition cameras linked wirelessly to computers enable enforcement officers to identify vehicles with outstanding fines.
The trouble is that often the penalties are being exacted from the wrong people by overzealous officials. The technology may be efficient but errors are being made in the inputting of data. Bradley’s employer was eventually forced to pay the £1,034 in London congestion charge fines under threat of having the vehicle confiscated, but the money was refunded because Transport for London (TfL), which oversees the congestion charge on behalf of the Greater London Authority, had been sending its bills and demands to the wrong address.
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It is not an isolated case. Earlier this month Simon Aldridge, managing director of a recycling company in London, won his case against the debt collection firm Equita, owned by Capita, which runs the congestion charge on behalf of TfL.
Equita is one of four firms of bailiffs employed by TfL. Aldridge took it to the small claims court after bailiffs came to his door and demanded payment of £450.85 — the accumulated costs, they claimed, of an unpaid congestion charge fine, plus numerous letters and visits from bailiffs, none of which he had received or witnessed. He paid the fine to avoid his vehicle being seized and took the action to recover his money.
At Clerkenwell court on January 5 the judge found in favour of Aldridge and said he had “great cause for concern” with the way Equita’s representatives had behaved and could find no evidence that the company had sent letters or visited Aldridge’s address.
Equita, which made pre-tax profits of £7.41m in the last financial year, has now been ordered to repay its bailiffs’ fees to Aldridge, who has reported his concerns to the Office of Fair Trading.
“I’m trying to run an entirely legitimate business,” said Aldridge. “The only reason I was late paying the fine was because I receive receipts of payment every day for the congestion charge on my four vans. The fines and the receipts come in almost identical brown envelopes and they just slipped through the net.”
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Every police force in Britain now has at least one automatic numberplate recognition (ANPR) “intercept” team, which typically consists of a sergeant and six constables. It is only a matter of time, motoring organisations say, before ANPR is used in cities across Britain to enforce traffic regulations in a similar way to its use in London.
And in the capital it is not just congestion charges that are being ruthlessly and sometimes mistakenly enforced. Roberta Bernstein and her husband were fined for going into a bus and taxi-only area in an unfamiliar part of London. They had no idea they had strayed into a public transport zone. The boundary between the two, they say, was poorly marked and almost impossible for visitors to recognise.
“There is no ‘no entry’ sign, just a confusion of other signs that appear to indicate a bus lane only,” said Bernstein, who works for Middlesex University. “Surely if all traffic is banned on this part of the road there should be proper signage.”
Numberplate-recognition cameras are also being used in London against motorists who stop in yellow box junctions or drive in bus lanes. Other local authorities are expected to start using the cameras to catch offending drivers later this year.
The new technology is a vital tool in the hunt for criminals and stolen vehicles. However, motoring groups say there is a danger of it becoming widely used as a blunt instrument to punish well-intentioned motorists for the smallest misdemeanour.
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Add to that the new style of enforcement where drivers with outstanding fines are threatened with confiscation of their vehicles and motorists have every right to feel persecuted.
There are 30 dedicated traffic enforcement officers in London — officially known as congestion charge enforcement officers (or “Dick Turpins” to their critics) — charged with making motorists stand and deliver.
With police and bailiffs they stop traffic, exact fines and even apply clamps to any vehicle with three or more unpaid fines on its record. The clamps are red with a letter “c” on the side to match the one on the officers’ black caps. “It all has a sinister feel,” said a motorist who was recently clamped. “They look and behave like a cross between traffic wardens and those awful unlicensed clampers.”
Such is the level of resentment they are causing that an action group has been set up. The London Motorists Action Group was formed shortly before Christmas to defend drivers against what it sees as “excessive charges”.
The group, which has Lord Lucas, the Conservative peer, and Tom Conti, the actor and anti-congestion charge campaigner, on its board, predicts TfL’s enforcement practices will catch on around the country, with local authorities using the same technology to track down motorists with unpaid fines and demand immediate payment.
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TfL defended the practice. It says it is awaiting payment of 400,000 unpaid congestion charge fines, amounting to about £56m, dating back to the charge’s introduction in February 2003, and needs to use enforcement officers and bailiffs to recover the money.
“The enforcement officers and (camera) van are there to target persistent evaders,” said a spokesman. “If motorists have paid their fines they have nothing to worry about.”
How to recognise the officials who have the power of instant justice
TRAFFIC WARDENS Employed by police. Wear black caps with yellow or yellow and black chequered band. Issue tickets, authorise clamping/ removal, direct traffic
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PARKING ATTENDANTS Employed by local councils to enforce restrictions. Issue tickets, authorise clamping/ removal. Usually wear black caps
CONGESTION CHARGE ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS Employed by Transport for London. Look like traffic wardens but with a letter C on their caps and vans. Can clamp or remove vehicles with three or more outstanding fines and also check for unpaid road tax
VOSA EXAMINERS Wear fluorescent yellow jackets with the black Vosa (Vehicle and Operator Services Agency) logo and drive yellow and black cars. Check vehicles and impound unroadworthy ones
DVLA CLAMPERS Clamp or remove vehicles that do not have a valid road tax disc. Travel in white vans with a green DVLA (Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency) logo