1 in 10 fines for speeding cancelled in the region
MORE than one in 10 speeding tickets issued in the West Midlands this year have been cancelled as thousands of drivers ended up getting away with it.
The number of cancelled tickets is likely to rise even further once the most recent cases have been processed.
It can be a daunting moment for any motorist when the ticket drops through the letterbox – but figures obtained show many don’t actually end up paying anything.
Of 65,555 speeding fines issued by West Midlands Police in 2022, as of mid-september, 7,575 were cancelled, meaning these drivers faced no further action.
Only 8,941 (13%) were paid. Most often, drivers who had been caught speeding chose to take the speed awareness course to escape a fine and penalty points, with 15,289 taking this option.
However, this is not always an option if the speeding offence is particularly serious or the person has recently attended a course.
Many more cases may have been successfully appealed, if drivers could prove they were not doing anything wrong and had been unfairly penalised. It shows thousands of drivers who see speeding fines drop onto their doormats don’t actually end up paying them. It’s also further evidence that a huge number of tickets end up being cancelled.
Common reasons for speeding tickets getting binned include faulty speed cameras, delays in prosecution notices and a lack of resources to progress cases. The figures, released following a freedom of information request, also show there are thousands of cases which have yet to be processed, meaning many more fines could yet be ripped up.
It was previously revealed that penalties are much more likely to be cancelled if a driver is detected by a camera – 25 per cent were cancelled last year compared to 15 per cent of fines issued directly by West Midlands Police through roadside operations.
RAC Foundation director Steve Gooding said: “It is correct that drivers caught speeding should face the consequences, but it is also important that the systems of detection and prosecution are robust. The hundreds of thousands of cancelled offences each year indicate they are not.
“At the very least it is an administrative burden the police could do without.”