Bus lane fines rake in £1.2m in just 6 months

MOTORISTS in Scotland’s biggest city have been hit with more than £1million in fines for straying into bus lanes this year.

New figures show the huge sums generated by use of bus-lane cameras which critics say are dedicated to revenueraising rather than road safety.

Glasgow City Council collected almost £1.2million in the first six months of 2015 – nearly £985,000 in the first three months, followed by more than £198,000 between April and June.

The total is almost as much as the amount raked in during the whole of 2014, when £1.6million was generated by the fines. Last night, Scottish Tory transport spokesman Alex Johnstone said: ‘Drivers are getting a raw deal, with thousands of fines being dished out by the bucketload.

‘Big Brother is certainly watching us and it’s time drivers got a better deal from the Nationalist Government who seem intent on wreaking havoc on the lives of ordinary hard-working Scots.’

The council said the money would be ploughed into transport infrastructure and put towards delivering its local transport strategy.

There was no breakdown on which bus lane generated the most money, but previous figures showed it was Nelson Mandela Place in the city centre, which caught 50,000 drivers between July and December last year.

There are now 16 camera-monitored bus lanes in the city, with 11 operating 24 hours a day.

Around 68,000 fines were slapped on drivers in the 24-hour lanes last year, while a further 37,595 fines were issued for the others.

Council bosses insist the lanes are needed to keep public transport moving and say that since the cameras were i ntroduced the number of drivers being fined has fallen by more than half, proving they work. The council is currently holding consultations on whether or not to limit the hours of bus lane operation to 7am-7pm.

It follows complaints from motorists fined after driving in deserted lanes in the early hours or on days when no buses were running.

The first bus lanes were introduced in the city almost a quarter of a century ago, but until 2012 they were enforced by police.

Their role was then taken over by the council and in April that year enforcement cameras were switched on.

In 2013, over- zealous council workers fined a driver for taking his bus into a bus lane, prompting coach firm owner John Henderson to brand the cameras ‘one big money-making exercise’. Com- menting on the new figures, a council spokesman said: ‘The point of bus lane cameras is to reduce offending – and the number of offences has steadily decreased since their initial introduction in 2012, demonstrating that drivers are changing their behaviour.’

Anger over the i ssue i s not confined to Glasgow.

A new bus lane camera near Edinburgh caused uproar in March after snaring 3,000 motorists in its first ten months of operation, raking in a reported £77,000 in fines.

In 2013, t he AA cri t i ci s ed Aberdeen City Council for ‘catching people on an industrial scale’ after it issued 16,801 penalty charge notices within six months.

‘Drivers are getting a raw deal’

IT is well-known that police are waging a war on motorists which, as we revealed l ast week, has seen them handing out fines to ‘little old ladies in Asda car parks’.

But councils have joined the crusade, and the Mail reports today that Glasgow motorists have been hit with fines of more than £1million since the start of the year.

The sum raised is soaring and cashstrapped councils across Scotland are now shamelessly hounding motorists who stray into bus lanes.

The local authority in Glasgow attempts to reassure us that the money generated is re-invested in transport infrastructure and that the scheme helps to keep public transport moving – albeit on pothole-strewn roads.

But given that some bus lanes operate all the time – even when no buses are running – it is now clear that the sole, cynical objective is to milk motorists for all they are worth.