No free ride for foreign traffic offenders

1.28.00pm GMT Thu 24th Jan 2008

Sarah Ludford joined speakers including Salla Saastamoinen of the European Commission (centre) and Nick Lester (front right) of London Councils to speak at the Eurosparks Conference.

A conference co-sponsored by Transport for London and London Councils, the association of London boroughs, is being held in Brussels to seek cross-border enforcement of traffic and parking fines in the EU.

The lack of a current mechanism to make foreign drivers pay fines is a big problem for the UK and particularly London, but also for other EU countries and cities. There are 3 million foreign cars a year in the UK, of which a lot come to London. Less than 3 percent of penalty charges incurred by foreign vehicles for parking and traffic infringements or non-payment of the congestion charge are paid.

The total cost to London is calculated at £24 million a year.

Speaking at the conference, London Liberal Democrat MEP Baroness Sarah Ludford commented:

"The number of unpaid fines by foreign drivers is completely unacceptable. Londoners - or Berliners or Romans - will not understand how the EU can freely give their personal data away to the US when they take a plane but not sort out this headache."

"The motives to sort it out are practical, legal and political. London needs the money, justice should be fair all round, and a free ride for foreigners does nothing to make people feel warmly towards Europe!"

"EU legislation, but also UK action, is necessary so that TfL and London councils can get access to the vehicle registration data needed to trace and catch foreign offenders. But this is a two-way street as it also means that parking ticket on the Costa del Sol could catch up with you! Safeguards on data protection are vital so that information is not misused."

More information about the Sparks project is available here:

http://www.sparksproject.org/news.asp?newsid=30