Councils sweep nearly £42m from bus lane fines
Freedom of Information request shows that one road alone generated almost £1.5m in penalties issued to drivers flouting regulations
UK drivers paid close to £42 million for driving in bus lanes last year, new Freedom of Information requests have shown.
A total of 888,760 penalties were handed to drivers through 2017, netting councils £41,807,647 in fines.
Scotland saw the highest number of drivers caught, with Glasgow and Aberdeen city councils fining 145,408 drivers, which brought in nearly £7.6 million.
However, theirs weren’t the most profitable lanes – with a single bus lane in Oxford’s High Street netting a whopping £1,488,120 by itself.
Amanda Stretton, motoring editor at Confused.com, which commissioned the Freedom of Information requests, said: “The £41 million in fines issued by councils are testimony to the fact that bus lanes are one of the most confusing challenges motorists face on our already chaotic roads.
Bus lanes are generating a lot of confusion, with a survey of 2,000 British motorists finding that 39 per cent of drivers have gone through a bus lane – but 48 per cent of them had no idea they were in one at the time.
However, 28 per cent of respondents admitted to deliberately driving through a bus lane, with 29 per cent of them saying they did so to avoid traffic.
