Bus-lane blunders have cost Manchester council up to £250,000 in the past two years, according to new figures obtained by the M.E.N.
Town hall chiefs have been forced to cancel more than 4,000 fines because of errors in management of bus lanes.
More than 2,500 tickets – potentially worth £152,000 to the council – had to be quashed because 18 city-centre bus-lane cameras were not properly certified between December 2008 and March last year.
A further 1,659 people successfully appealed fines last year because a sign at Victoria Station was wrong. The fines, worth up to £99,500, had to be dropped because the blue-circle sign was supposed to state that only buses, cyclists and black cabs could use the lane – but the word ‘only’ was missing.
The new figures also show that, in the past two years, almost 4,500 people have successfully appealed against fines because they had a reasonable excuse for being in the bus lane, such as pulling over to let an emergency vehicle pass.
In the same period, around 150 fines were ‘issued in error’ - where a ticket is issued just outside the enforcement period or within the five-minute grace period allowed for inaccuracies on people’s clocks.
A further 1,500 were written off because officers were unable to trace the drivers.
The council has issued a total of 77,852 bus lane fines in the past two years. A fine costs £60, but is reduced to £30 if paid within two weeks. The fine rises to £90 if not paid within 28 days.
Rachel Christie, the council’s head of street management and enforcement, said: "We have always been clear that the purpose of bus lanes is to help public transport users get around the city efficiently and reduce congestion, not to penalise responsible motorists. The number of tickets cancelled because there were mitigating circumstances shows that our appeals process works fairly and transparently and that where drivers have a reasonable explanation we will always cancel the penalty charge notice.
"In addition, a significant number of tickets were cancelled due to historic issues relating to camera certification, and signage outside Victoria Station. While this is unfortunate these issues have been resolved and no longer apply."
As the M.E.N. has previously reported, the camera certification blunder meant more than 5,000 fines were wrongly issued.
The new figures show that 2,535 fines were cancelled following appeals from the drivers.
Another 18,000 fines, potentially worth £1m, were found to have been issued using uncertified cameras between October 2006 and December 2008 following a legal challenge by lawyer and M.E.N. columnist Nick ‘Mr Loophole’ Freeman.
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What gets my goat is people who pay no attention to bus lane restrictions and so clog up one lane. A prime example is the A57 Hyde Road into town.
The bus lane is for buses only between 7am and 10am and again from 4pm to 7pm and the (small) signs state this but even outside these hours when you are allowed to drive in the bus lane 99% of vehicles move into the normal lane once the bus lane start. I carry on in the bus lane and the abuse you get!
Just last week I have people beeping their horns at me and when you get to the bus depot and the bus lane ends they are all swerving in to the left lane, somewhat dangerously, in a fast attemt to tuen left onto the A6. One women wound down her window to call me all manner of names and to ask if I was blind as I was in a bus lane. I pointed out that as it was 11am you can drive in it to which she said 'don't give me any 'expletive' and she questioned my intellignece!
Can the council please put adverts up or larger signs to make people aware of the bus lane rules. This will also help ease congestion as rather than one lane we will have two so traffic flow willl improve.
the purpose of bus lanes is to help public transport users get around the city efficiently.
Why then are Private Hire Vehicles barred from using the bus lanes, they provide an identical service to black cabs and are licensed by the councils who rake in thousands of pounds in revenue.
Their pathetic excuse is that it is difficult to determine the difference between an ordinary vehicle and a Private Hire vehicle once in the bus lane.
Why then are Private Hire vehicles plastered with stickers, roof lights and license plates.
A vast majority of our customers are elderly and or disabled and need to be picked up and dropped off at specific locations but the council won't allow it......thats discrimination in my book.
Its about time the council stopped trying to make money out of motorists and remember many of them work and shop in manchester!!!!!
I would also encourage people to refuse to pay them, they are not a fine and the council has to take action through the "Civil" courts which will cost them more money!!!!!!!
A further 1,500 were written off because officers were unable to trace the drivers.
what a shockingly high figure,presumably these cars were unregistered untaxed and un insured
The worse situation is the lack of buses in the bus lane!
Take one of the main routes into Manchester from the North side, Bury New Road, which I travel every morning, you can sit in a queue from the old Rialto all the way back to Broughton with one lane closed to traffic just waiting to be used by a bus which never appears as the route has been said to not profitable and minimal buses use it in the time limits
I suppose the A6 is different with queues of buses but why have bus lanes where there is no need at all but the other road users are left queueing?
Great news. Nothing wrong with sticking it to the highwaymen and highwaywomen at Manchester City Council who will, anyway, find some other means of making us stand and deliver.
And well said Audenshaw Bob: drivers who are too stupid or illiterate to read the signs which show that most bus lanes are time-limited deserve to be stuck in traffic. Stuff 'em.
Roadrunner Irlam.......... Private hire are not legally classed as public service vehicles in the same way as a Hackney carriage is. (look up the Byelaw on the subject). Hackney cab drivers rightly or wrongly are considered by most members of the public to be more knowledgeable and more trustworthy than private hire drivers. (look up the statistics on assaults on women in either private hire vehicles or Hackney cabs. Assaults by private hire outnumber those by Hackney cabs by something like 200 to 1) .There IS an US and THEM attitude, and that will always be the case. Ask yourself truthfully, have you ever picked up a passenger illegally, knowing that to do so would invalidate your insurance? We are "professional" drivers, whilst you are , just private hire drivers.I repeat. If you want to be considered a professional "Taxi" driver", put the work in and pass the Hackney carriage test.
Great news!!! My advice is don't pay any fines or fixed penalties and stick it out. They can't and won't take us all to court and that'll really screw up the system. Teach the greedy beggars a lesson big time. No need to be frightened of the authorities now. Coppers really are no nowt noddies with no power. The prisons are full and better than any holiday camp so GO FOR IT BIG TIME!!!!!
Archie, that is an anoying route too. You come from Didsbury village and the bus lane appears and evrybody switches lanes then just before Barlow Moor Road junction the bus lanes ends so the switch back in and cut up the traffic in the bus lane. It is only a bus lane BETWEEN CERTAIN HOURS!!!!
I have had people give me the usual shaking of the head, two fingered salutes, look of exasperation and hurling abuse yet if they chose to use what they were taught in the Highway Code they would see that they can use these lanes at certain times. It is they who are stupid, not me.
I note that we are three days into 2011 and no one has blamed GMP for this fiasco. Please can we get back to the status quo and immediately blame the Police for this?
Well if anyone had any doubt that motorists were seen as cash cows the goverment & it's agents could milk for minor discretions, this story should quash them completely.
Of course it's wrong to break the law, but many of these bus lanes should never have been introduced in the first place and cause huge levels of congestion for people who pay tax to travel on them! Public transport pays much less road tax per person / vehicle etc. and passengers pay no direct tax at all. many areas of public transport receive subsidy so the poor motorists end up paying them! Why should a bus user expect to get from A to B without the congestion everyone who pays for the damn thing has to? Most of the time the bus lanes are empty , if they were open as a second lane then everyone would get there faster!
How can you lose what you never had?
Audenshaw Bob, i wish i could copy and paste your post and stick it to every Bus lane in Manchester, I too could have had accident after accident if i had not let people in the right lane push in front of my car because they think im in the wrong lane, When in fact they are in the wrong lane, the highway code tells you to always drive on the left hand side of the road when safe to do so, My morning and evening problems are on birchfields road and Anson road and i too have suffered abuse. Its a bus lane from 4 till 7 in the eveing and no other time !!!
I find that ignoring that sort of abuse from others works wonders, Bob ;-)
@ Theowolfe ... happy to join that boycott, although on additional grounds that I'm sure I couldn't mention here.