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Motoring news

Driving offences 'to attract £15 surcharge'

27/04/2009

Speeders may be hit with an extra charge on top of their fine, under new Government proposals revealed by the Daily Telegraph.

According to the paper, Justice Secretary Jack Straw has suggested a £15 increase to on-the-spot fines and fixed penalties by extending the 'victim surcharge' system, which came into force on 1 April 2007 as a way of funding services for the victims of crime.

This would take the minimum £60 fine to £75 in total.

Currently the surcharge can only be imposed by a court, but introducing it for motoring offences dealt with outside the court system could potentially raise millions of pounds. More than three million speeders were given a fixed-penalty notice last year - up from 1.77 million in 2006.

The paper says that the surcharge could be applied to a range of other driving offences, including parking infringements and careless driving, for which hundreds of thousands of fixed penalties are handed out each year.

However, the move - which would see speeders paying the same flat surcharge as those convicted in court of more violent crimes - was criticised as a "cash cow" by TaxPayers' Alliance chief executive Matthew Elliott.

"It is concerning that the Government increasingly exploits fixed-penalty notices as a revenue stream rather than a tool of justice," he told The Telegraph.

"If the levy is meant to provide some reparation, it is absurd to make a speeder pay the same as someone who has actually burgled or mugged a person."